«To Iosif Utkin* Fresh oats he’ll feed / To the horses on top the Bolshoi**, / Four spirited steeds / Strong and fast1 as a river in spate. / We’ve caught up with that woman... / Are you called Cleopatra? My joy, / Come to me, come, / I’m waiting for you at the gate. I shall sho...»
«I've bad a name ever since birth, / Cherished my own opinion... / Believe me, friends, I’m most averse / To pass into oblivion. It’s not that, when my body’s old, / I'll grudge the good earth having it. / My great love is inspiring life / In things that are inanimate. The river b...»
«To Rodam Amirejibi** I am taking you, Suliko, / Down the paths of memory’s maze / In the charmed land of long-ago / Where I lived in my youthful days. It was such a long time ago... / The Ukraine... How the sun then shone! / Through the wild steppe gallopped Makhno*** / Pointing stra...»
«There was a black cross on his chest / No engraving, no design, no patina: / A treasured heirloom charm / Bequeathed to this alien Italian. My Neapolitan boy what will be left / Of you here on the Russian fields? / Were you not happy enough / On that magnificent bay? I shot you dead ...»