You get from time to time a man
Who's every woman's silent friend —
A friend without ulterior aim,
A friend on whom she can depend.
He's like the lifebelt on the deck
Which hangs and waits, for years unheeded,
Until at last it saves a life,
That final moment when it's needed.
Your careless hands must never hang
Me somewhere handy to be found.
I'm not a lifebelt. I'm a stone.
Hold fast to me and you'll be drowned...
Бывает иногда мужчина —
Всех женщин безответный друг,
Друг бескорыстный, беспричинный,
На всякий случай, словно круг,
Висящий на стене каюты.
Весь век он старится и ждет,
Потом в последнюю минуту
Его швырнут — и он спасет.
Неосторожными руками
Меня повесив где-нибудь,
Не спутай. Я не круг. Я камень.
Со мною можно потонуть.
«Yes, I am charming. / This phantom shape, / this velvet shimmer — / merely two wings. Where do I come from? / Where am I off to? / Here on a frail flower / for a breath I pause. Free and fickle, / how long will I linger? / I lift my wings — so! — / and flit away.»
«Under my own window / White is birch’s hue — / Snowy blanket-shadow, / Silver patterned too. On its fluffy branches / With a snowy hem / Tassels’ blossom blanches — / Fringe’s icy gem. Standing, birch is yearning, / Silent, sleepy spire, / Falling snow is burning / In i...»
«The restaurants on hot spring evenings / Lie under a dense and savage air. / Foul drafts and hoots from drunken revelers / Contaminate the thoroughfare. / / Above the dusty lanes of suburbia / Above the tedium of bungalows / A pretzel sign begilds a bakery / And children screech for...»
«In the church choir a girl was singing About all the weary people in a strange land About all the ships far out on oceans About all who were forgetting the joys at hand. High in the steeple her voice was singing, A thin ray turning her shoulder white . From the dark everyone watched a...»