Marina Tsvetaeva
In Praise of the Rich

Hereafter, having warned in advance,
That there are miles between us!
That I rank myself one of the rabble,
That my place in the world is honest:

Beneath the wheels of all excesses:
A table of monsters, cripples, hunchbacks...
And hereafter, from the roof of a bell tower
I proclaim: I love the rich!

For their root, rotten and flimsy,
Festering a wound from the cradle,
For their bewildered habit of taking
From another's pocket into their own pocket.

For the quietest request of their lips
Performed like a shout.
And because they'll not be let into paradise,
And because they don't look you straight in the eye.

For their secrets there's always a courier!
For their passions they're always with a dispatcher.
For nights forced upon them,
(And they force themselves to kiss and drink!)

And for the fact that in inventories, in boredom,
In gold plating, in yawns, in woolens,
They don't buy me, a scoundrel —
I affirm: I love the rich!

And still, despite cleanshavenness,
Satiety, drunkenness (I'll wink and spend!)
For a certain kind of — sudden — beaten-downness,
For a certain kind of hangdog's look

Doubting...
                 — isn't it a pivot
for zero? Aren't the weights true?
And for the fact that among all outcasts
In the world there is no such orphanhood.

There is such a stupid fable:
How camels crawled through the eye of a needle:
...For their look, surprised to death,
Excusing themselves in illness,

As though in bankruptcy... «I'd judge...I'd be happy —
Yes»...
           For a quiet word, from pursed lips:
«I counted the carats, I was his brother»...
I swear an oath: I love the rich!

Translated by Michael Naydan