A lone white sail for an instant
Appears in haze of azure foam,
What does it seek in lands so distant?
What did it leave behind at home?
The wind is whistling, the mast
Bends, screeching in resentment...
It seeks no happiness, — alas —
Nor is it fleeing from contentment!
An azure stream runs by the sail,
A ray of light shines to appease...
And yet, this rebel seeks the gale,
As if in gales there is peace!
Белеет парус одинокой
В тумане моря голубом!..
Что ищет он в стране далекой?
Что кинул он в краю родном?..
Играют волны — ветер свищет,
И мачта гнется и скрыпит...
Увы! он счастия не ищет,
И не от счастия бежит!
Под ним струя светлей лазури,
Над ним луч солнца золотой...
А он, мятежный, просит бури,
Как будто в бурях есть покой!
«When the supreme event had come to pass, and He, / Our God, upon the cross had died in agony, / On either side the tree two looked on one another: / One, Mary Magdalene, and one, the Virgin Mother — / In grief two women stood. / But now whom do we see beneath the ...»
«'Tis time, my friend, 'tis time! For rest the heart is crying. / The days go swiftly by, hour after hour flying / Bears off some shred of lifeyet still we wish to live, / Though death must coine, how soon? And joy is fugitive. / Not happiness, but peace and freedom may be granted / On eart...»
«Torpid summers, snow-choked winters, / at all your weddings, birthdays, funerals, / always I listen for a dim, unheard chime / to drive away my deadly boredom. There . . . ! Now, with cold concentration, I wait / — to understand, to pin it down, to kill it. / And as I wait intently, a t...»
«Those born in backwater years / forget their own way. Russia / gave birth to us in her years of anguish / and we can forget nothing. Years of holocaust, do you / herald madness, or the advent of hope? / Days of war, days of freedom, / have stained our faces with bloody light. We are sp...»