Above the city Peter had abandoned,
The church bells resonated thunder.
Again, their crashing waves have swept
Above the woman that you’ve left.
Tsar Peter, and you, tsar, shall be admired!
Yet, here, the bells are elevated higher.
So long as they ring out from the blue —
The primacy of Moscow will hold true.
And forty forties churches from afar
Still ridicule the grandeur of the tsar!
Над городом, отвергнутым Петром1,
Перекатился колокольный гром.
Гремучий опрокинулся прибой
Над женщиной, отвергнутой тобой.
Царю Петру и вам, о царь, хвала!
Но выше вас, цари, колокола.
Пока они гремят из синевы —
Неоспоримо первенство Москвы.
И целых сорок сороков церквей
Смеются над гордынею царей!
___
1. В 1712 году Пётр I перенёс столицу из Москвы в Петербург. Помета Цветаевой под стихотворением, сделанная 23 февраля 1939 года: «NB! Никто не отвергал. Так. А ведь как — обиженно и заносчиво — и убедительно! — звучит».
«Farewell my friend, so long, my darling. / Darling, you are here in my heart. / Even so this predestined parting / Will not keep us ever more apart. Farewell, no clasping and no crying, / No scowling and no feeling blue — / There is nothing new about dying, / And to keep on livi...»
«I’m neither flesh, nor spirit yet / And daily bread seems hardly needed, / As if my punctured finger bled / Not blood, but sky drops faintly sleeted. And there are times when pouring wine / Up to the brim feels hardly ample, / When bread all drenched in salty brine / Does not singe li...»
«Upon the voluptuous chestnuts you yet again / Place Sunday’s wedding candles, dear spring. / I construct my soul as in the olden days / And aught to break into song, but only dirges / And lullabies sound – sleep’s sweet gladdeners.»
«I know the price of my poems. / I’m sorry for them, that’s all. / But the glory of the verse of others / I experience as betrayal. Through digressions, repetitions, / Without colours and almost without words, / One single vision, / Like the moon through the clouds. Now it shows, no...»