Busy day turns into evening,
Glowing coal is lit.
City streets gusted with stifling,
Rowdy bodily heat.
Smooth as a song, off the ground,
Far away, out of sight
Counterforts pencil out
Into the lightways of night.
Into blue arches' embraces,
Into star diamond dust
Gray nets of hastening laces
Have been connected and cast.
Effortlessly in a whisper
Stone pile liftoff occurs...
Wings of the churches, you're sisters
Of springy wings of the birds!
Вечер за днём беспокойным.
Город, как уголь, зардел,
Веет прерывистым, знойным,
Рдяным дыханием тел.
Плавны, как пение хора,
Прочь от земли и огней
Высятся дуги собора
К светлым пространствам ночей.
В тверди сияюще-синей,
В звёздной алмазной пыли,
Нити стремительных линий
Серые сети сплели.
В горний простор без усилья
Взвились громады камней…
Птичьи упругие крылья —
Крылья у старых церквей!
«Exegi monumentum A monument I've raised not built with hands, / And common folk shall keep the path well trodden / To where it unsubdued and towering stands / Higher than Alexander's Column. I shall not wholly die-for in my sacred lyre / My spirit shall outlive my dust's corrup...»
«We heard him say, "I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands." / -Mark 14:58 I've reared a monument not built by human hands. / The public path to it cannot be overgrown. / With insubmissive head far loftier it stands / ...»
«Storm has set the heavens scowling, / Whirling gusty blizzards wild, / Now they are like beasts a-growling, / Now a-wailing like a child; / Now along the brittle thatches / They will scud with rustling sound, / Now against the window latches / Like belated wanderers pound. Our frail h...»
«O'er the earth a storm is prowling, / Bringing whirling, blinding snow. / Like a beast I hear it howling, / Like an infant wailing low. / Now the thatch it rustles, playing / On our roof; now at our pane / Raps like someone homeward straying / And behighted in the plain. Old our hut i...»