Resplendent in their biblical glory
Above the city float the flaming clouds;
The angel that tops Peter and Paul's fortress
Looks through them into centuries massed….
But my vision is clear and it’s uncertain
What lies beyond – what dreams, sunsets, cities
Will replace these – glowing gold, growing pale –
And what night will set for all of eternity!
Как древняя ликующая слава,
Плывут и пламенеют облака,
И ангел с крепости Петра и Павла
Глядит сквозь них — в грядущие века.
Но ясен взор — и неизвестно, что там
Какие сны, закаты, города —
На смену этим блеклым позолотам —
Какая ночь настанет навсегда!
«On every clock this message you can find — / Its simple words a truth profound contains — / Who squanders time, casts honour to the wind, / Though Time expires, your conscience will remain. It dwells within the soul, not heeding hours; / Repentance always comes a bit too late, / While...»
«We're few, perhaps three, hellish fellows / Who hail from the flaming Donetz, / With a fluid gray bark for our cover / Made of rain-clouds and soldiers' soviets / And verses and endless debates / About art or it may be freight rates. We used to be people. We're epochs. / Pell-mell we ru...»
«Come, don't I know that, stumbling against shadows, / Darkness could never have arrived at light? / Do I rate happy hundreds over millions / Of happy men? Am I a monster quite? Isn't the Five-Year-Plan a yardstick for me, / Its rise and fall my own? But I don't quiz / In asking: What shal...»
«The cubbyhole I lie in is a box / Of candied orange-peel. / Soiled by hotel rooms till I reach the morgue — / That's not for me, I feel. Out of pure superstition I have come / And settled here once more. / The wallpaper is brown as any oak, / And there's a singing door. I kept one ha...»