To rule troika and guitar
Means: to rule each over
Woman, means: with old beer
To circle overhead!
O handsome one! Halfbreed!
Who baptized you? In what font?
All the gypsy snowstorms
Opened up your vest
O the brave guitarist!
Eh, I fear - your strings and hollows
Will discard me down to lie!
God be with you, driver Sergei!
Women are Russia and I!
Править тройкой и гитарой
Это значит: каждой бабой
Править, это значит: старой
Брагой по башкам кружить!
Раскрасавчик! Полукровка!
Кем крещен? В какой купели?
Все цыганские метели
Оттопырили поддёвку
Вашу, бравый гитарист!
Эх, боюсь — уложат влёжку
Ваши струны да ухабы!
Бог с тобой, ямщик Серёжка!
Мы с Россией — тоже бабы!
«For the last time, we met, / On the embankment, as ever. / High water in the Neva, / Fear of flood in the city. He talked of the summer and said, / How absurd — a woman poet! / I remember the Tsar’s great palace, / The Peter and Paul fortress! — Then, the air was not ours, / Bu...»
«The high vault is bluer / Than the sky’s solid blue... / Forgive me, happy boy, / The death I brought you — For the roses from every place, / For your foolish words, / That your bold dark face / Pale with love, stirred. I thought: your purpose — / To show an adult’s pride. / ...»
«It’s endless — the heavy, amber day! / Impossible grief, pointless waiting! / And the silver-voiced deer, again, / Under the Northern Lights, belling. And I think there’s cold snow / A blue font for the poor and ill, / And a little sledge’s headlong flow, / To the ancient chime ...»
«For O. A. Glebova-Sudeikina "What do you see, on the wall, dimly alive, / At that hour when the sunset eats the sky? A seagull, on a blue cloth of waters, / Or perhaps it’s those Florentine gardens? Or is it Tsarskoye Seloe’s vast view, / Where terror stepped out before you? Or that on...»