Igor Severyanin
Praise to the Fields

My fields, my wave-like, foaming fields!
With autumn spinach, brown as if of bricks,
And lettuce, clover, heather and daisy.
How much the eyes can hear and ears can see!

I walk along the side of the river.
The wildflowers shine like sapphire
Leaning beneath the wheats golden frame,
I hear, as in the river splashes elm,

This splash like music gives its gentle sound.
And the blue storm of sea? A burst of sun?
And clouds within the sky, all white like sheep?
The life with its simplicity is deep.

While I am able still to touch your breath,
May it become and stay forever blessed!
And may the ground become the earth in bliss —
The fields, the fields, the life-begetting fields!

Translated by Ilya Shambat