One mirror must mirror another;
each mirror mismirrors the other.
Not that evil cannot be defeated,
only that we cannot escape defeat;
I believe in the ash left behind by the fire;
not in the music that burned my life.
Друг друга отражают зеркала,
Взаимно искажая отраженья.
Я верю не в непобедимость зла,
А только в неизбежность пораженья.
Не в музыку, что жизнь мою сожгла,
А в пепел, что остался от сожженья.
«(From "Who Can Live Happily in Russia?") God's will be done! / No food he'll try, / The youngest son— / Look, he will die. A crust I got, / Another bit— / He touched it not: / "Put salt on it!" Of salt no shred, / No pinch I see! / "Take flour, instead," / God whispered me. ...»
«My poems! Witnesses of unavailing / Tears for the sad earth shed! / Born in the moment when the soul is failing, / And by the storm-winds bred; / Against men's hearts you beat with wistful wailing / Like waves on cliffs as dead.»
«The capitals are rocked with thunder / Of orators in wordy feuds. / But in the depths of Russia, yonder, / An age-old awful silence broods. / Only the wind in wayside willows, / Coming and going, does not cease; / And corn-stalks touch in curving billows / The earth that cherishes and ...»
«In the valley the birches are bored. / On the meadows, fog billows and weighs. / Sodden, with horse-dung floored, / The highroad blackens in haze. Rich on the steppe's sleepy air, / The odor of freshly-baked bread. / Bent to their packs, slowly fare / Two beggars to look for a bed. Rou...»