Thus swam the head and lyre down
To the receding far-off place.
And lips repeated: pity, pity,
And the lyre enounced: «Peace»
Bloody-silver, silver-and-bloody
And double trace she did then pour,
My tender brother, my dear sister
Along the paralyzed Gebr.
At times, the movement of head slowed
Inside the unabated angst.
But lyre assured: do pass me near!
And lips behind her said, «Alas!»
Moving together like a garland
With far-off rippling head of bed —
Do not the hair pour with silver?
Does not the lyre pour with blood?
Thus, with a staircase descending
Of river — into crib of swells.
Thus, to new island, where it's sweeter
Than somewhere — lies a nightingale...
Where then are they, the holy remnants?
The salty wave — respond, respond!
Maybe the net has pulled it out,
Net of bare-headed Lesbian?
Так плыли: голова и лира,
Вниз, в отступающую даль.
И лира уверяла: мира!
А губы повторяли: жаль!
Крово-серебряный, серебро-
Кровавый след двойной лия,
Вдоль обмирающего Гебра —
Брат нежный мой, сестра моя!
Порой, в тоске неутолимой,
Ход замедлялся головы.
Но лира уверяла: мимо!
А губы ей вослед: увы!
Вдаль-зыблящимся изголовьем
Сдвигаемые как венцом —
Не лира ль истекает кровью?
Не волосы ли — серебром?
Так, лестницею нисходящей
Речною — в колыбель зыбей.
Так, к острову тому, где слаще
Чем где-либо — лжёт соловей…
Где осиянные останки?
Волна солёная — ответь!
Простоволосой лесбиянки
Быть может вытянула сеть? —
«We charged at the enemy, / Camped on the heath, / With "The Song of the Apple" / Caught in our teeth. / The rocks and the heather, / The newly-mown hay / Echo our song / To this very day. But my pal sang another, / A song from afar, / As we rode in the saddle, / Pursuing our sta...»
«I’m lonely and sad, and in moments of bitterest pain / Have no one to look to, alas… / Desires!.. What use to desire without end, without gain, / While all the best years swiftly, fleetingly pass! To love… Whom?.. If briefly, ’tis not worth the effort… / ...»
«Noon heat, a gorge in Daghestan, / I lay still, a bullet in my chest: / The deep wound was still red-hot, / blood seeped, drop by drop. I lay lonely on the gorge’s sand, / the cliff-ledges towered around, / the sun burned their yellow heights, / and I — I slept like the dead. And I...»
«Clouds in the sky, you are ceaselessly wandering, / As pearly chains in the azure steppes glimmering, / Exiled as I have been, constantly hurrying / From native North into South you are quickening. What drives you there: the command of your destiny? / Some secret jealousy? Or open wickednes...»