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 am a shade among those shades that once / Drank worldly water yet did not quench their thirst. / Disturbing the dream of the living, they return like ghosts / To sip the living water on their stony path. Like the first boat from an ocean’s depth, / Like a sacrificial jar emerging from a...»
«And I have dreamed of this, and this was dreamed by me, / And once again I’ll see this in a dream, / And everything repeats itself and fully reappears, / And you will dream all that I have seen. There, outside of us, outside the world / A wave upon a wave is striking shore, / Upon the w...»
«I dreamt of many things, so beautiful and grim, / I'll dream of many things, so sorrowful and happy, / And they will come to life, and everything will happen, / And you will dream yourself of shadows from my dream. Beyond the modern world, beyond and far away / A wave is washed ashore and b...»
«I am fed up with words, words, words, / And am no longer able to extol my rights / On speech and meaning, while all the night / Like a widow, ragged foliage knocks upon the roof. / It turns out my hearing is no good / For mumbled nightly speech of widowhood. We are akin. We are not akin. ...»