A birch tree lived in the park’s scanty brushwood,
As dark and dry as dejection...
In a May noon there a girl took off her hat.
And her plait fell loose. Her dear one
Completed the patterned open-work
By laughingly hanging the floral
Hat on a branch of the birch.
. . . . . . . . . .
May spied this
And from its blue height wondered how
There were bright flowers on the dead birch.
В жидкой заросли парка береза жила,
И черна, и суха, как унылость…
В майский полдень там девушка шляпу сняла,
И коса у нее распустилась.
Ее милый дорезал узорную вязь,
И на ветку березы, смеясь,
Он цветистую шляпу надел.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Это май подглядел
И дивился с своей голубой высоты,
Как на мертвой березе и ярки цветы…
«An even, hazy hum runs through the glade, / The rustling leaves to laze and drowse incline . . . / The roosters faraway in sun-specked shade, / Their vernal tidings sing, in crows benign. A quiet, hazy hum runs through the glade . . . / To succor me and send my soul repose, / I lie midst ...»
«Embroidered all in stars, my sail / Stands tall and white, both taut and frail; / Between the stars there glows the Face / Of Mother Mary, full of grace. What do I care if shores and sphere / Are fading, soon to disappear! / My soul’s replete, my soul’s austere, / And horns of fresh...»
«A lone white sail that glistens, gleams, / On seascape haze cerulean blue. / What distant realms attract his dreams? / In dear homeland what’s left to rue? The billows surge, the winds are shrieking, / The creaking mast writhes in distress, / Alas, not happiness he’s seeking, / Nor ...»
«(Mosaic in a Moscow Cathedral) Thy face flushed red ‘gainst Batu’s fires, / That gruesome glower in eyes gone dead, / The rust-gold wings where faith respires / In sacred trepidation spread. Before thy stare in the Time of the Dread / Passed fools in skufia, tattered, worn, / Forever...»