The more the autumn wind is wicked
And the moon desperate, —
The merrier we, vagrants, get
With a bottle of wine.
We wandered the whole day through
The field, with a sleuth and a rifle…
We are comrades — nothing more —
Unacknowledging sorrow.
What is love? Rapture, lips,
The fervour of understatement…!
Moderately gentle, moderately rough,
You know how to be with me.
You smoke a Finnish pipe
And follow the wisp…
Narrowing your mocking eye,
Turning on your stomach!..
What is love? A smouldering match, —
Better things can be found:
Between desire and habit
There are paths of bliss.
Чем осенний ветер злее
И отчаянней луна, —
Нам, бродягам, веселее
За бутылкою вина.
Целый день блуждали в поле
Мы с собакой и ружьем...
Мы товарищи — не боле —
Но тоски не признаем.
Что любовь? Восторги, губы,
Недосказанности зной... !
В меру нежным, в меру грубым
Ты умеешь быть со мной.
Трубку финскую ты куришь
И следишь, как дым плывет...
Глаз насмешливый прищуришь,
Повернувшись на живот!..
Что любовь? дотлеет спичкой, —
Можно лучшее найти:
Между страстью и привычкой
Есть блаженные пути.
«Kneeling on the hard window sill / And thrust out the window – a gaping fish mouth! / A breath…a breath of air…Like a living corpse / Who sucks life from a gray oxygen bag, / And whose heart thumps: time to go! time to go! / And sky’s heavy arch weighs on the earth, / And the whi...»
«As a shade with three dimensions, brother, / It isn’t easy to drag out one’s fate! / Moscow’s madhouse now is overcrowded, / And the cemetery also has no space / For your dust in roomy crypts or coffins, – / Now you’re buried in a metal saucepan. Seems the world’s no longer s...»
«You are young, long-limbed! With such / A marvelously molded, winged body! / How awkwardly and with such difficulty / You drag around your spirit, anguish-stunned! Oh, I know that spirit’s way of moving / Through whirlwinds of the night and ice-floe gaps, / And that voice which rises in...»
«My blood and my rhymes have a shortage. / We’re no longer whinnying or snorting, / We don’t frolic, or slant our eyes – / We’re reconciled to this life! With age we’ve become more docile, / We dream of the warmth of the stable, / We have forgotten wild oats, / Remembering our...»