A boiling Waterfall, once, dashing from the rock,
Addressed to a salubrious Spring below with a talk:
"In grass you're hardly seen, your murmur is not loud,
So how you succeed attracting this huge crowd?
Why do they come to you? I'don't know what to think."
"For treatment", quietly said the Spring.
Кипящий Водопад, свергаяся со скал,
Целебному ключу с надменностью сказал
(Который под горой едва лишь был приметен,
Но силой славился лечебною своей):
«Не странно ль это? Ты так мал, водой так беден,
А у тебя всегда премножество гостей?
Не мудрено, коль мне приходит кто дивиться;
К тебе зачем идут?» — «Лечиться»,
Смиренно прожурчал Ручей.
«In Germany once lived a censor / of lowly rank and title. / He blotted, struck and cancelled / and knew no other no other calling. He sniffed out harmful diction / and smeared it with Indian ink. / He guarded minds from infection / and his bosses valued his work. On a winter day in for...»
«Here sways a tree: — Farewell! — / There a house calls out: — Stranger, stay! — / The road leads forth: — Mount me, walk / on my weathered skin, stomp me with your heel, / Don't trust these houses calling you to settle down. / Trust in the tree and trust in me. / ...»
«The forties, fateful, / warring, frontline, / with funeral notices, / clattering trains. / The hum of the rails. / All is cold, high and barren. / Their houses have burned — / they’re heading east. / That’s me at the station / in my scruffy wool cap. / The star’s not stan...»
«How bare the countryside! What dearth / How stark the hamlets’ desolation... / Long-suffering country of my birth, / poor homeland of the Russian nation. Never will the stranger’s gaze / look deeper to perceive or guess / what hidden light there is that plays / and shimmers through...»