I don’t know the wisdom others seem to need,
Only little transient things I pour in my verse.
Everything that’s transient contains whole worlds for me,
Full of rainbow colors, shifting, playing, free.
Wise men, do not curse me. What am I to you?
See, I’m nothing but a cloud, a cloud that’s full of fire.
See, I’m nothing but a cloud. Watch me floating by.
And I cry out to dreams... But to you I do not cry.
Я не знаю мудрости, годной для других,
Только мимолётности я влагаю в стих.
В каждой мимолётности вижу я миры,
Полные изменчивой радужной игры.
Не кляните, мудрые. Что вам до меня?
Я ведь только облачко, полное огня.
Я ведь только облачко. Видите: Плыву.
И зову мечтателей… Вас я не зову!
«We shall meet again in Petersburg, / as though we had buried the sun there. / O. Mandelshtam A quarter century has passed abroad / and hope has become a joke. / The radiant starscape above Nice / is permanently my native sky. The stillness of the blissful South, / the murmur of waves, ...»
«We shall meet again in Petersburg / as if we had buried the sun there. / O. Mandelstam After a quarter-century overseas, / to cling to hope is ludicrous at best. / The radiant sky above adoptive Nice / is native sky to one so disposessed. The quiet of a southern paradise — / the rust...»
«They have given you an incomprehensible name. / You are unconscious; / or — more preciously — your name is / potassium cyanide. / G Adamovich How fussy you once were, / My friends! / You didn't drink vodka, didn't like it. / You preferred Côte de Nuits. Our bread now — potassi...»
«Here among you: your lodgings, your lucre, your smoke, / Your ladies, your Legislatures, / Having not got used to you, having not been blunted by you / Like a certain — / Schumann scudding along with spring on the sly: / From above! and beyond! / Like a nightingale’s suspended tremol...»