Marina Tsvetaeva
George. 1. Eyelashes, eyelashes...

Eyelashes, eyelashes
Bowing down.
With the shame of eyelashes
Eclipsed — suns in the arrows' crown!
How clear and how loud!
And his cloak was red
And white was his stallion.

Embarrassed is the rider,
Proud is the stallion.
On the dead serpent
The whitest stallion
Looks in half-turn.
In wide half-window
After a spear
Into the red jaw — the nostrils wildly blows —
And slants, eyes of fire.

The rider's embarrassed,
The horse comes down.
The deceased serpent's
Accursed blood —
Amber-colored — with light gait
He avoids - the amber blood flows.
Raising a hoof, he freezes - from the heights
Of the swan turn.

Meek is the horseman,
Fastidious is the horse.
With a spear having
The rattling serpent pierced —
Since you're modest and languid!
In the winds — up high — is the heart of yours,
At the river edge — the spear of yours
Now sings at the waxen fingers
At the pink lips
Under cover of arrows
Of eyelashes,
Sings, shouts. —
O fearful heaviness
Of deeds done!
And his cloak is red
And white is his stallion.

The lovely horseman
Awake, stallion!
The tender horseman
Has a chest pain.
Threads the pearls with eyelashes...
The holy icon — is face of yours,
With sunset ray — the spear of yours
From long fingers splashes.
Does he mow down with a spear
The ray that's purple?
Or the red cloud
Rises like mantle?
The white house.
He will be
Let in
With the horse.

The horseman leans,
The horse stands on hind legs.
The palm around the spearman is weaker.
Now he will bring victory!
Stirs — moves — and after the spear
Into the amber puddle — after the horse
That slipped away.
The base sweep
Of arrows...

Red is the mantle, white is the horse.

Translated by Ilya Shambat