The old man shuffles to the fish market
To buy half a pound of perch.
A mimosa glitters with drops of rain.
The river’s smooth surface gleams.
O, these provincial lodgings.
Local voices. The barking of dogs.
Life here consists of food and drink.
A bed. A roof. Tobacco.
Vistas. Clouds. One’s like an angel.
Another's like a Newfoundland dog.
And a third is the image of Wrangel,
With a monocle screwed in his eye.
But Wrangel — that was in Petrograd,
Poetry, champagne and snow...
O, pity him, with his thickening blood.
For God’s sake — his legs ache so!
No one will take pity on him.
And why pity him — why?
The creaking old man is dying, dying.
As all men have to die.
What's left, I ask. al! the same.
For me still to relish?
Gardens verdant after springtime rain.
The mistral, half a pound of fish.
Бредет старик на рыбный рынок
Купить полфунта судака.
Блестят мимозы от дождинок,
Блестит зеркальная река.
Провинциальные жилища.
Туземный говор. Лай собак.
Все на земле — питье и пища,
Кровать и крыша. И табак.
Даль. Облака. Вот это — ангел,
Другое — словно водолаз,
А третье — совершенный Врангель,
Моноклем округливший глаз.
Но Врангель, это в Петрограде,
Стихи, шампанское, снега...
О, пожалейте, Бога ради:
Склероз в крови, болит нога.
Никто его не пожалеет,
И не за что его жалеть.
Старик скрипучий околеет,
Как всем придется околеть.
Но все-таки... А остальное,
Что мне дано еще, пока —
Сады цветущею весною,
Мистраль, полфунта судака?
«When slumber’s depths are fell descending / On darkened city in the night, / When turns the blizzard’s fretful bending / At chime upon the belfries’ height — How scarily the heart then freezes! / How mournful at this very hour, / Fly through the stormy, screaming breezes / The m...»
«Wakened by the shadows’ probing / Snowy windows with their arc — / Isaac’s swarthy gold dome’s robing / Glimmers, beautiful and dark. Doleful, snowy morning settles, / Isaac’s cross wears misty shroud. / At the window pigeons nestle, / Snug against the glass they crowd. All i...»
«What I have given is yours. / Shota Rustaveli I speak from underneath the ruins here, / From underneath the landslide I am shrieking, / As if in quicklime now I disappear / Beneath a cellar’s arches, where it’s reeking. And in the winter, silence I will feign, / For good I’ll slam ...»
«I languish still in ardent yearning, / And hunger for your spirit still — / In memories, still, as day is turning, / Caught image causes me to thrill… / Sweet image that I cannot banish / Remains before me everywhere, / Elusive, it will never vanish, / Like stars aloft in ink-black...»