Rummage with your torches
All the moonlit night!
Charted are land’s porches —
But it’s lost from sight.
Lapped up from the saucer —
Gleams the bottom glazed.
Can you go back ever
To the house they’ve razed?
Second birth’s requirement,
Land renewed must lead.
Don’t resist allurement —
Ride that bucking steed!
Get back on, you faker!
Aren’t those bones still whole?
Such a guest, the baker,
Sells a broken roll,
Yet won’t joiner heartless
Coffin to her sell!
Country there of countless
Versts, of heavens’ realm,
On whose filthy lucre
Etched is my youth’s sigh.
Finished is old Russia.
Vanished, as have I.
С фонарём обшарьте
Весь подлунный свет!
Той страны на карте —
Нет, в пространстве — нет.
Выпита как с блюдца, —
Донышко блестит.
Можно ли вернуться
В дом, который — срыт?
Заново родися —
В новую страну!
Ну-ка, воротися
На́ спину коню
Сбросившему! Кости
Целы-то — хотя?
Эдакому гостю
Булочник — ломтя
Ломаного, плотник —
Гроба не продаст!
То́й её — несчётных
Вёрст, небесных царств,
Той, где на монетах —
Молодость моя,
Той России — нету.
— Как и той меня.
«And here I am, I stay alone / To count the empty days. / Oh my free friends, / Oh my swans! And I won't call you with a song, / I won't return you with tears, / But in the evening at a doleful time / I'll mention you in prayer. Caught by a deadly arrow, / One of you has fallen, / A...»
«The bread is poisoned and the air’s drunk dry, / How difficult to doctor wounds! / Joseph sold into Egypt / Could not have grieved so much for home! As they ride beneath a star-studded sky, / Bedouin tribesmen with closed eyes / Compose wild legends / About the troubled day gone by. ...»
«To N. Gumilyov Above the yellow Offices of State / A muzzy blizzard long swirled and fanned, / And mounting in a sleigh, an advocate / Closes his greatcoat with expansive hand. The steamers at winter moorings. In the sun / The thickened glass of cabins has caught alight. / Monstrous, lik...»
«We look at woods and say: / Here is a forest of ships and of masts, / The pink pines / Stand free to their tops from mossy accretions, / They should creak in a storm / As do lone-standing stone pines / In the infuriated foresdess air; / Beneath the salty heel of wind the plumb line sta...»