The grip was so sweetly tight
That the purple of drowsiness
Faded — with my lips I learned
The coldness of pink, narrow pearls.
O sisters, O tender ten, two
Caressingly amicable families,
My desires are glad to veil
You with the canopy of night.
You are geishas of the lamp lightings,
Five roses betrothed to the stem,
But Cypris has nothing holier than
The I loves unspoken by you.
You are like mummies’ torturing musk,
Like tuberoses’ oppressive secret places —
And I only by a stem of meditations am
Rooted in the frightening fairy tale...
You are mine, O distant hands,
Your sweet-strong grip I nurtured
In the cold of ennui, I fanned
With a strange happiness...
But I know... becoming drowsily
Intoxicated, I will abandon
The magic thread, and I will
Dream words to offend you, almah.
Зажим был так сладостно сужен,
Что пурпур дремоты поблёк,—
Я розовых, узких жемчужин
Губами узнал холодок.
О сестры, о нежные десять,
Две ласково дружных семьи,
Вас пологом ночи завесить
Так рады желанья мои.
Вы — гейши фонарных свечений,
Пять роз, обрученных стеблю,
Но нет у Киприды священней
Не сказанных вами люблю.
Как мускус мучительный мумий,
Как душный тайник тубероз,
И я только стеблем раздумий
К пугающей сказке прирос…
Мои вы, о дальние руки,
Ваш сладостно-сильный зажим
Я выносил в холоде скуки,
Я счастьем обвеял чужим.
Но знаю… дремотно хмелея,
Я брошу волшебную нить,
И мне будут сниться, алмея,
Слова, чтоб тебя оскорбить.
«Suspecting not yours, but a prompted reply, / A silent forbiddance I’ve read in your eye, / But still! O how more understandably speaks / This genuine and elegant blush of the cheeks. This call of the flowers that sweetly pervades, / This languid approach of the vespertine shades, / Thi...»
«Sensing that loved ones have told you, “Say no,” / I read in your eyes what your answer bespeaks, / But even more lucid are signals that show / On the telltale opulent blush of your cheeks, In the plaint of the flowers that languish and wilt, / In the solace of shade that has rushed in ...»
«Yes, right you are! Alone for outlines airy / I am so fine. / All velvet mine with all its twinkle merry— / Two wings of mine. O, never ask me, wherefrom I appear / Or whither flit! / Upon a flow’r I have alighted here / To breathe and sit. How long, without an effort, aim or worry...»
«Look now: one bright flit in the air / And I flaunt my precious bling. / All of this velvet with its flicker-flair / Is only a wing, plus a wing. Don’t ask from whence I’ve come, / Or whither I’m bound when I leave. / Here on this flower in blithe slumberdom / I perch, and breathe...»