The bed of a railway cutting
has tidy sheets. The steel-blue
parallel tracks ruled out
as neatly as staves of music.
And over them people are driven
like possessed creatures from Pushkin
whose piteous song has been silenced.
Look, they’re departing, deserting.
And yet lag behind and linger,
the note of pain always rising
higher than love, as the poles freeze
to the bank, like Lot’s wife, forever.
Despair has appointed an hour for me
(as someone arranges a marriage): then
Sappho with her voice gone
I shall weep like a simple seamstress,
with a cry of passive lament –
a marsh heron! The moving train
will hoot its way over the sleepers
and slice through them like scissors.
Colours blur in my eye,
their glow a meaningless red.
All young women at times
are tempted by such a bed!
В некой разлинованности нотной
Нежась наподобие простынь —
Железнодорожные полотна,
Рельсовая режущая синь!
Пушкинское: сколько их, куда их
Гонит! (Миновало — не поют!)
Это уезжают-покидают,
Это остывают-отстают.
Это — остаются. Боль как нота
Высящаяся… Поверх любви
Высящаяся… Женою Лота
Насыпью застывшие столбы…
Час, когда отчаяньем как свахой
Простыни разостланы. — Твоя! —
И обезголосившая Сафо
Плачет как последняя швея.
Плач безропотности! Плач болотной
Цапли, знающей уже… Глубок
Железнодорожные полотна
Ножницами режущий гудок.
Растекись напрасною зарёю
Красное напрасное пятно!
...Молодые женщины порою
Льстятся на такое полотно.
«I’m tired of life in my own land, / The boredom of the fields’ expanses, / I’m going to quit my cabin and / Like tramp or thief I’ll take my chances. I’ll chase the cloudy trails of day / In search of mean accommodation — / With knife in bootleg as I stray / That pal has str...»
«The winter sings — aloud it yells, / The pine tree with its hundred bells / lulls shaggy forest and / around it all the rain-drenched clouds / Are sadly mounting in their crowds / To float to distant land. And in the yard a blizzard spreads / Its lovely silken carpet’s threads, / ...»
«The night is dark, I cannot sleep, / I’ll stroll beside the river. / The lightning there begins to leap / in fizzing girdle’s sliver. On mountain now birch-candles glow / In silver’s moonlit feathers. / So come, my heart, now let us go / To hear the songs of zithers. I’ll feast...»
«Consume yourself with others’ pleas — / I’m left to my devices, thinking / Of glassy smoke of tresses’ tease, / Autumnal weary eyelids blinking. Oh, autumn comes! And it for me / than youth and summer is more precious. / But doubly pleasing you’re to me, / The poet’s thought...»