What utter happiness is it to be forsaken!
What heaven's light can one see in the past! —
Like when cold winter after summer breaks in,
We dream of sun that long ago left us.
A dried flower, a bundle of lover’s letters,
Few happy dates, a light of smiling eyes, —
And tho’ your path be now dark and helpless,
But in last spring you’ve trodden the fresh grass.
There is another kind of the love passions’ lore
Another path, deserted one and great,
«To be forsaken» — what could be wished more?
To be unloved — that is the awful fate!
О, быть покинутым — какое счастье!
Какой безмерный в прошлом виден свет
Так после лета — зимнее ненастье:
Все помнишь солнце, хоть его уж нет.
Сухой цветок, любовных писем связка,
Улыбка глаз, счастливых встречи две, —
Пускай теперь в пути темно и вязко,
Но ты весной бродил по мураве.
Ах, есть другой урок для сладострастья,
Иной есть путь — пустынен и широк.
О, быть покинутым — такое счастье!
Быть нелюбимым — вот горчайший рок.
«in memory of Glina Straovoitova That’s how it was: I turned my sickroom gazes / on the yard outside the ward, as though on groves / or open fields. I tried to write ‘quite simply’: / as it turned out, the impediment was this: my mind was racked, tortured by constant fretting / about ...»
«To tell the truth, I'm kin / to the house cricket. / I sing a secret song / above the oven's ash. / For me, one brings / the water to a fierce boil, / For me, another / prepares a hearth of gold. A traveler will recall / ...»
«Every second of our time together / We exulted, as if it were epiphany, / We two alone in the world. Lighter / And braver than a bird’s wing, / You flew down the stairs / Like dizziness, skipping half of them, / Through wet lilacs into your realm / On the other side of the mirror. ...»
«Here, a house once stood. Inside, some old man / lived with a child. And now the house is gone. A hundred kilo bomb — the earth, blacker than black. / A home, now none. That’s war; what can be done? On a heap of gray rags, a samovar gleams. / A dresser, nearby a horse. Above the horse, ...»