How they flare up, a tinder bonfire
on the plaza of night, our holy convictions!
Before the usurping edict of tenderness
what are our heroes, our marble traditions?
How solemnly fall the lofty antiques
one by one, and the modes of nobility,
and, oh, our ancestral jewels under
the blow of that king-pretender: pity.
The simpler gesture: to bend our heads
aware that lowliness has us in harness
down along the precipitous slope,
the irresistible incline of tenderness
Как разгораются — каким валежником!
На площадях ночных — святыни кровные!
Пред самозванческим указом Нежности —
Что наши доблести и родословные!
С какой торжественною постепенностью
Спадают выспренные обветшалости!
О наши прадедовы драгоценности
Под самозванческим ударом Жалости!
А проще: лоб склонивши в глубь ладонную,
В сознаньи низости и неизбежности —
Вниз по отлогому — по неуклонному —
Неумолимому наклону Нежности…
«Mother dearest, is your heart still beating? / Mine is too, so greetings, Mum, to you! / And I hope that over home still fleeting / Evening light unspoken sheds its hue. Letters tell me you’re a little worried, / Seems my absence causes you distress, / They have seen you weeping as you...»
«By degrees we find we’re all departing / For the same serene and silent land. / And perhaps when soon that course I’m charting / Some possessions I will have to hand. Sweetest silver birches’ straggling covert! / Mother earth’s horizon’s sandy plain! / Hosts departing face me in...»
«Of mighty talent stand I musing, / Of one who stands for Russia’s fate, / Tverskóy Boulevard perusing, / I stand and with myself I prate. My hair is fair — there are few blonder — / They say that I’ve become like mist, / O Alexander! What a bounder! / And I’m delinquent — ...»
«As once I loved I really don’t. / Oh, yes, I know you’ll sorrow, sorrow / Because the sweeping moon now won’t / With verses overflow tomorrow. You’ll grieve, you’ll revel, star-wards roar — / It falls upon your brow so furrowed — / In hut your heart it did outpour, / But h...»