A sail drifts white and on its own
Amid the light blue ocean haze.
What does it seek in distant country?
What made it leave its native bays?
The billows play. The winds are whistling
Down at the bending, creaking mast
Oh! This one seeks no happy ending
And does not flee a happy past.
Below, a brighter stream than azure.
Above, the golden sunray flows,
Yet this one, restive, quests for tempests
As if in tempests were repose.
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!
«The sparse, untidy, ginger-coloured curls / In meagre whisps about her head lie scattered; / Her little blouse is faded, old and tattered. / She looks a freak among the boys and girls / Playing around her, poor, misshapen creature / With crooked teeth and sharp, ungainly features. / Not ...»
«Shall I live always / Sitting at home? / Wasting my youth here, / Never to roam? And by the window / Shall I always stay, / The far road watching / By night and by day? Are the hawk's pinions / Unfettered never? / Is ev'ry journey / Barred him for ever? To foreign peoples / Fe...»
«How helplessly chilled was my chest, yet / My footsteps were nimble and light. / The glove that belonged on my left hand / I unconsciously put on my right. It seemed that the stairs were endless, / But I knew — there were only three! / Autumn, whispering through the maples, / Pleaded...»
«My breast grew cold and numb, / But my feet were light. / On to my right hand I fumbled / The glove to my left hand. It seemed that there were many steps / — I knew there were only three. / An autumn whisper between the maples / Kept urging: "Die with me. Change has made me weary, / ...»