17
Thus, O the Lord! And this my prayer
Accept for temple's confirmation.
I sing not pleasures of my love —
I sing the wound of my nation.
Not nasty person's rusty trunk —
Granite, with people's knees rubbed coarse.
Hero and tsar given to all,
To all — a singer — righteous — corpse.
Not bashful at the coffin boards,
Breaking upon Dnieper the ices,
Russia — on Easter it does swim
In pouring streams of thousand-voices.
Thus, heart, there will be cry and praise!
Let your cry — which thousand?
The mortal love is jealous so.
The other's at the chorus glad.
17
Так, Господи! И мой обол
Прими на утвержденье храма.
Не свой любовный произвол
Пою — своей отчизны рану.
Не скаредника ржавый ларь —
Гранит, коленами протёртый.
Всем отданы герой и царь,
Всем — праведник — певец — и мёртвый.
Днепром разламывая лёд,
Гробо́вым не смущаясь тёсом,
Русь — Пасхою к тебе плывёт,
Разливом тысячеголосым.
Так, сердце, плачь и славословь!
Пусть вопль твой — тысяча который? —
Ревнует смертная любовь.
Другая — радуется хору.
«From my poor sins I am set free. / In lilac dusk the taper smolders; / The dark stole's rigid drapery / Conceals a massive head and shoulders. "Talitha kumi": Is it He / Once more? How fast the heart is beating . . . / A touch: a hand moves absently / The customary cross repeating.»
«Broad gold, the evening colors glow, / The April air is cool and tender. / You should have come ten years ago, / And yet in welcome I surrender. Come here, sit closer in our nook, / And turn gay eyes at what my nurses / Might never glimpse: the blue-bound book / That holds my awkward ch...»
«Give me comfortless seasons of sickness, / Visitations of wrath and of wrong / On my house; Lord, take child and companion, / And destroy the sweet power of song. Thus I pray at each matins, each vespers, / After these many wearying days, / That the storm-cloud which broods over Russia / ...»
«Our sacred craft / Has existed for thousands of years. / With it, even without the sun, the world is bright. / But so far not one single poet has said / That there is no wisdom, no old age, / And that perhaps there is no death.»