(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,
Forevermore midst vaults widespread,
Thy huge eyes brim with spleen and scorn.
Мозаика в Московском соборе
Алел ты в зареве Батыя —
И потемнел твой жуткий взор.
Ты крылья рыже-золотые
В священном трепете простёр.
Узрел ты Грозного юрода
Монашеский истёртый шлык —
И навсегда в изгибах свода
Застыл твой большеглазый лик.
«I returned to my city, familiar as tears, / As veins, as mumps from childhood years. You’ve returned here, so swallow as quick as you can / The fish oil of Leningrad’s riverside lamps. Recognize when you can December’s brief day, / Egg yolk folded into its ominous tar. Petersburg! I s...»
«I’ll tell you bluntly / One last time: / It’s only maddening cherry brandy, / Angel mine! Where the Greeks saw just their raped / Beauty’s fame, / At me through black holes gaped / Only shame. But the Greeks hauled Helen home / In their ships. / Here a smidgen of salty foam /...»
«For the resounding valor of millennia to come, / For the high-sounding name of the great human race, / I’ve cut myself off from honor and joy / At my ancestors’ feast, from my cup and my place. The wolfhound century leaps at my throat / But it isn’t wolf’s blood that flows through m...»
«I drink to military asters, to all that I’m censured about, / To the fur coats of nobles, to asthma, to the jaundiced Petersburg day, To the music of pines in Savoie, gasoline on the Champs-Elysees, / To roses in a Rolls-Royce saloon, to Parisian pictures’ oil paint. I drink to the surf of...»