6
And the silk sash is falling
To his feet — a snake heavenly..
And "someday, when she's underground,
You will calm down" they tell me.
I see my profile, old
And arrogant in brocade white.
And somewhere — guitars — guitars —
And youths in a cloak like the night.
And somebody under mask hiding:
"Recognize!" — "I don't know" — "Recognize!"
And the silk sash is falling
On a square round like paradise.
6
И падает шёлковый пояс
К ногам его — райской змеёй…
А мне говорят — успокоюсь
Когда-нибудь, там, под землёй.
Я вижу надменный и старый
Свой профиль на белой парче.
А где-то — гитаны — гитары —
И юноши в чёрном плаще.
И кто-то, под маскою кроясь:
— Узнайте! — Не знаю. — Узнай! —
И падает шёлковый пояс
На площади — круглой, как рай.
____
1. На заре морозной...
2. Долго на заре туманной...
3. После стольких роз, городов и тостов...
4. Ровно — полночь...
5. И была у Дон-Жуана — шпага...
6. И падает шёлковый пояс...
7. И разжигая во встречном взоре...
«In those days the first words / Were heard in infantile melody, / Jehovah’s youthful anger roared / Above the world like spring thunder, And the cedars learned to cast their shade, / And Eve — she had only just fallen, / And her depths boiled with seed, / And the world was God, and ...»
«Oh, the unconquerable heaviness / Of these waters silenced / Behind centuries-old dams! Oh Lord! It’s still the same, it’s hard for me / With my heart full to overflowing, / And a muse who’s un-talkative.»
«The greedy saline soil had eaten everything. / I rooted out the twisted, writhen roots of / The vines that curled here once upon a time – / The earth was nubbly, desiccated, scabby, / Like a feverish sick woman’s lips... / Beneath its lacerated sole my foot / Grew calloused from lean...»
«So Hagar sits in obloquy / And gushing piteously / The spring pours out a threnody: / Be-er la-chai ro-yi. Those lands belong to Abraham, / But this expanse – to none: / In front of her, the wilderness / To Shur itself does run. Despair, despair instinctual! / In her Egyptian eyes,...»