The stoop of oaks lifts up the chrome of clouds.
Cliffs harbour alcoves, niches, grottos deep.
And rain and wind and heat have left their traces
Into these stones engraved. A sketch is grooved
Onto the slope, crayoned by lichen, framed by moss,
And walls of rock rise up as icon-cases.
The cinnabar and niello here, yonder —
Vestiges of gilding and of icons
The cryptic visages time-worn...
Дубы нерослые подъемлют облак крон.
Таятся в толще скал теснины, ниши, гроты,
И дождь, и ветр, и зной следы глухой работы
На камне врезали. Источен горный склон,
Расцвечен лишаём и мохом обрамлён,
И стены высятся, как древние киоты:
И чернь, и киноварь, и пятна позолоты,
И лики стёртые неведомых икон.
«You pictures flying slantwise in a shower / From the highway that blew the candle out, / I can’t teach you to keep from rhyme and measure, / Deserting hooks and walls in your skew rout. Suppose the universe goes masked? Or even / That every latitude breeds some of those / Who are on han...»
«Nightlong the water labored breathlessly. / Till morning came, the rain burned linseed oil. / Now vapor from beneath the lilac lid / Pours forth: earth steams like shchee that's near the boil. And when the grass, shaking itself, leaps up. / Oh, who will tell the dew how scared I am — / ...»
«to V. V. Goltsev Not long ago the rain walked through this clearing / Like a surveyor. Now with tinsel bait / The lily of the valley's leaves are weighted. / And water got into the mullein's ears. These are the frigid fir trees' quondam nurslings, / Their ear lobes stretched with dew; they...»
«If only, when I made my début, / There might have been a way to tell / That lines with blood in them can murder, / That they can flood the throat and kill, I certainly would have rejected / A jest on such a sour note. / So bashful was that early interest, / The start was something so r...»