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?
«A cordial tu for empty vous / Slipped out instead when she addressed me, / And just this one misspoken you / Roused all my soul’s enraptured fancies. I stand here as she reads this through, / To look away now just won’t do; / I say with vous, aren’t you a gem! / But think with tu,...»
«O storm-cloud, the tempest's survival, alone / Like mad do you rush o'er the heavenly dome; / Alone do you cast as you drift on your way / A dark, brooding shade on the jubilant day. A short while ago you lay cloaking the sky, / And great forks of lightning flared round you on high. / You...»
«Where fierce the surge with awful bellow / Doth ever lash the rocky wall; / And where the moon most brightly mellow / Dost beam when mists of evening fall; / Where midst his harem’s countless blisses / The Moslem spends his vital span, / A Sorceress there with gentle kisses / Present...»
«There, where seas are ever crashing, / On the shores of lonely cliffs, / And where the moon glows warmer, / Through sweet hours of twilight mist, / And, wherein the harem, revelling, / The Mussluman's days pass by, / An enchantress, with caresses, / Handed me a talisman. And, ca...»