4
«Your chest is redolent,
Just like a rosemary trunk...
A most honorable lady...»
«My young honored one...»
«I'm dark, unrecognized, quiet...
With what shall I repay...»
From underneath the eyelids
Something, «With life!» did say.
In every chased-down stranger
We are serving Christ the Lord.
Mangles in mangled confusion
Handful of genuine pearls.
Pearls have been sprinkled — like tears!
Aiming with every eyelash,
He sees, while stranger picks up
Them, while fidgeting in ash.
4
— Грудь Ваша благоуханна,
Как розмариновый ларчик…
Ясновельможна панна…
— Мой молодой господарчик…
— Чем заплачу за щедроты:
Тёмен, негромок, непризнан…
Из-под ресничного взлёту
Что-то ответило: — Жизнью!
В каждом пришельце гонимом
Пану мы Иезусу — служим…
Мнёт в замешательстве мнимом
Горсть неподдельных жемчужин.
Перлы рассыпались, — слёзы!
Каждой ресницей нацелясь,
Смотрит, как в прахе елозя,
Их подбирает пришелец.
____
Марина. 1. Быть голубкой его орлиной!..
Марина. 2. Трём Самозванцам жена...
Марина. 3. Сердце, измена!..
Марина. 4. Грудь Ваша благоуханна...
«I walk and think of various things, / For myself weave a funeral wreath, / And in this hideous world I am / A stylishly solitary man. But suddenly I hear: war, ideas, / The last trump, the twentieth century... / And growing cold, I then recall — / I am a human being no more. Spasmic ...»
«Covered with a glory that had lost it luster, / Ringed by cretins, tricksters, hypocrites, / The two-headed eagle1 did not fall in battle / But died a horrible, degraded death. Grinning, one man said: "He made it!" / Another sobbed: "Lord, forgive..." / But no one guessed it was a stuffe...»
«Spring said nothing to me — it couldn't. / Perhaps it was at a loss for words. / But down the murky length of the station / Lights came fleetingly to life. Only, from the platform someone greeted / Someone in the dark blue night. / Only, on my miserable head / A crown shone faintly.»
«They'll not exterminate you now, / As that mad leader dreamt they might. / Fate or God may lend a hand, / But the Russian man is tired... Tired of suffering, of vainglory — / It's time to enjoy oblivion. / Tired of rushing blindly forward — / It's time, perhaps, for demolition... ....»