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…
«You have gone. / Another world’s your / home, they say. / Into space… / You fly now / t’wards your stars’ collision. / Sober! / There, there’s no advance, no / beer as pay. / No, Yesenin, / this is / ...»
«You were my life sometime ago. / Then came the war, the devastation. / You vanished, leaving me alone, / Without a trace or explanation. When many years had passed me by, / Your voice awakened me by chance. / I sat and read Your Word all night / And came to life out of a trance. Since ...»
«The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son, the Glorious and Mighty Knight Prince Guidon Saltonovich, and of the Fair Swan-Princess Three fair maidens, late one night, / Sat and spun by candlelight. / "Were our tsar to marry me," / Said the eldest of the three, / "I would cook and I would bake –...»
«I splashed some colours from a tumbler / and smeared the drab world with emotion. / I charted on a dish of jelly / the jutting cheekbones of the ocean. / Upon the scales of a tin salmon / I read the calls of lips yet mute. / And you, / could you have played a noc...»