Aquarelle
An apple-tree in Spring shakes me, — to see it grow,
Its branches whitely weighted with unmelting snow.
So might a hunch-backed girl stand, beautiful and dumb,
As trembling, the tree stands, and strikes my genius numb...
It looks into the wide, pale shallows, mirror-clear,
Seeking to shed the dews that stain it like a tear;
And stilled with horror, groans like a rude, rusty cart,
Seeing the dismal hunch mocked by the pool's bright art.
When steely sleep alights upon the silent lake
For the bent apple-tree, as for a sick girl's sake,
I come to offer tenderness the boughs would miss,
I press upon the petal-perfumed tree a kiss.
Then trustingly, with tears, the tree confides her care
To me, and brushes with a touch my back-blown hair.
Her boughs encircle me, her little twigs enlace,
And I lift up my lips to kiss her flowering face.
Акварель
Перу И. И. Ясинского посвящаю
Весенней яблони, в нетающем снегу,
Без содрогания я видеть не могу:
Горбатой девушкой — прекрасной, но немой —
Трепещет дерево, туманя гений мой...
Как будто в зеркало — смотрясь в широкий плес,
Она старается смахнуть росинки слез,
И ужасается, и стонет, как арба,
Вняв отражению зловещего горба.
Когда на озеро слетает сон стальной,
Бываю с яблоней, как с девушкой больной,
И, полный нежности и ласковой тоски,
Благоуханные целую лепестки.
Тогда доверчиво, не сдерживая слез,
Она касается слегка моих волос,
Потом берет меня в ветвистое кольцо, —
И я целую ей цветущее лицо.
«"I had been leaving coast of misty Albion." / How divine they are — this sadness and this height! / I see the dingy waves fall down and rise on, / The dingy firmament... I know that all by hart. I see the youth that leaned upon the high mast's rope, / As beautiful as if he were by fairie...»
«I’ll die at dawn or daybreak! But at which of these lines, / Which I’ll die with — no decision by orders’ receiving! / Oh, if my torch would be blessed to extinguish two times — / So as to die with the light of the morning and evening! The heaven’s daughter has passed with her gai...»
«I know the only truth! The others — cast aside! / There’s no need for the men of Earth to fight with others! / Look, there’s the evening soon and soon it’ll be the night. / What you about, colonels, poets, lovers? Now wind is near the soil and dew lay on the grass, / The starry bli...»
«A fire, a sword, doing you awful harm? / No! These words are too loud and shabby! / A pain, well-known like to eyes — a palm, / Like to lips — a name of a dear baby.»