You lost your Russia. 'Tis the end.
Did you oppose an element
Of bliss to one of evil and dark?
No? Then shut up! Missing the mark,
Your fate has sent you to a land
Cold, not affectionate, foreign, and
Your moans and sighs there in vain.
Russia 's not free. One has to gain...
Ты потерял свою Россию.
Противоставил ли стихию
Добра стихии мрачной зла?
Нет? Так умолкни: увела
Тебя судьба не без причины
В края неласковой чужбины.
Что толку охать и тужить —
Россию нужно заслужить!
«Yes, I am charming. / This phantom shape, / this velvet shimmer — / merely two wings. Where do I come from? / Where am I off to? / Here on a frail flower / for a breath I pause. Free and fickle, / how long will I linger? / I lift my wings — so! — / and flit away.»
«Under my own window / White is birch’s hue — / Snowy blanket-shadow, / Silver patterned too. On its fluffy branches / With a snowy hem / Tassels’ blossom blanches — / Fringe’s icy gem. Standing, birch is yearning, / Silent, sleepy spire, / Falling snow is burning / In i...»
«The restaurants on hot spring evenings / Lie under a dense and savage air. / Foul drafts and hoots from drunken revelers / Contaminate the thoroughfare. / / Above the dusty lanes of suburbia / Above the tedium of bungalows / A pretzel sign begilds a bakery / And children screech for...»
«In the church choir a girl was singing About all the weary people in a strange land About all the ships far out on oceans About all who were forgetting the joys at hand. High in the steeple her voice was singing, A thin ray turning her shoulder white . From the dark everyone watched a...»