The grapes in the royal garden have rusted;
the concubine, waiting, sleeps by the wall.
Veins of Palestine, heavy with sap,
in you flows the ancient sadness of Saul.
Like a five-day-old wound his mouth crusts over:
thick is the blood with its term at hand.
How long it has been since King Saul felt like drinking!
How long his eye has been probing the land.
The roses of Jericho burn on his temples,
like bellows his chest heaves, working its load,
and they drag, and they drag, their souls all sighing,
the young men of Palestine with their black blood.
Виноградины тщетно в садах ржавели,
И наложница, тщетно прождав, уснула.
Палестинские жилы! — Смолы тяже́ле
Протекает в вас древняя грусть Саула.
Пятидневною раною рот запёкся.
Тяжек ход твой, о кровь, приближаясь к сроку!
Так давно уж Саулу-Царю не пьётся,
Так давно уже землю пытает око.
Иерихонские розы горят на скулах,
И работает грудь наподобье горна.
И влачат, и влачат этот вздох Саулов
Палестинские отроки с кровью чёрной.
«No, I’m not Byron, I’m unknown; / I am, like him, a chosen one, / an exile hounded by this world — / only I bear a Russian soul. / An early start, an early end — / little indeed will I complete; / within my heart, as in a sea, / lie shattered hopes — a sunken load. / Grim ...»
«I'm not Byron, I've got another mind, / Outcast by people, alone, / I lost my roots and family and home, / I've got my soul of a Russian kind. / I earlier began my own breath / And soon I'll finish all my days, / My mind will make a little bit; / Deep in my heart a load lays / Of bro...»
«A year will come — of Russia’s blackest dread; / then will the crown fall from the royal head, / the throne of tsars will perish in the mud, / the food of many will be death and blood; / both wife and babe will vainly seek the law: / it will not shield the victims any more; / the put...»
«The year is coming, Russia’s year of dark, / The falling of the crown that year will mark; / When for the throne the serfs will lose the awe, / The food of many will be death and woe. / The rule of law will be disowned, and thence / Will shield no wives, nor children’s innocence; / P...»