We are keeping an eye on the girls, so that the kvass
doesn’t go sour in the jug, or the pancakes cold,
counting over the rings, and pouring Anis
into the long bottles with their narrow throats
straightening tow thread for the peasant woman:
ceremoniously, the house is filled with the smoke of
incense — and we are sailing over Cathedral square
arm in arm with our godfather, silks thundering.
The wet nurse has a screeching cockerel
in her apron — her clothes are like the night.
She announces in an ancient whisper that
the young man — in the chapel — is dead.
And an incense cloud wraps our coals about
under its own saddened chasuble.
The apple trees are white, like angels — and
the pigeons on them — grey — like incense itself.
And the pilgrim woman sipping kvass from the ladle
at the edge of the couch, is telling
to the very end a tale about Razin
and his most beautiful Persian girl.
За девками доглядывать, не скис
ли в жбане квас, оладьи не остыли ль,
Да перстни пересчитывать, анис
Всыпая в узкогорлые бутыли.
Кудельную расправить бабке нить,
Да ладаном курить по дому росным,
Да под руку торжественно проплыть
Соборной площадью, гремя шелками, с крёстным.
Кормилица с крикливым петухом
В переднике — как ночь её повойник! —
Докладывает древним шепотком,
Что молодой — в часовенке — покойник.
И ладанное облако углы
Унылой обволакивает ризой.
И яблони — что ангелы — белы,
И голуби на них — что ладан — сизы.
И странница, прихлёбывая квас
Из ковшика, на краешке лежанки
О Разине досказывает сказ
И о его прекрасной персиянке.
«I cannot remember — at just which nightstop / the itch of future life has crawled through me. / The world did shudder. / A star tripped on its run, / and fell into a blue-enameled basin. / I reached for it... But, it has washed away, / between my fingers — a red-scaled ide. / The ...»
«Here I am back again in this land. / I pass by / Again under the young planetrees, / Again, children run amid the parkbenches, / Again, the sea lies covered in the smoke of ships... / Here I am, a volunteer, in epaulets, / Edged in colored piping, - / Here I am, a warrior, the hero of ...»
«I chanced upon an ancient witch in brooding forest lair. / And asked I of this ancient one: “You know the sin I bear?” / She laughed, this wizened woman, with a cackle like a bray: / “Do you not know? You aren’t, my child, the first his youth to slay? / For you rejected happiness, be...»
«When shines the moon amidst the dark of night / With sickle’s scintillation, bright and tender, / It’s then my spirit starts to take her flight, / In thrall to all that’s filled with distant splendour. And in my dreams I race towards the chases / Of forest glades and snow-white mounta...»