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!
«Nothing chains a heart to heart, / If you’d like to leave. / Many joys will life impart / On the one who’s free. I don’t cry, complain or pout, / Mine is not a life of bliss. / Do not kiss me, all worn out, — / Death will come to kiss. Bitter languor has been weathered / With...»
«Here we’re all drunkards and whores, / Joylessly stuck together! / On the walls, birds and flowers / Pine for the clouds and air. The smoke from your black pipe / Makes strange vapours rise. / The skirt I wear is tight, / Revealing my slim thighs. Windows tightly closed: / Who’s ...»
«...And no-one came to meet me / Carrying a lantern. / The house quiet: my entry / By moonlight uncertain. Under the green lamp, / His smile was lifeless, / Whispering: "Cinderella, / How strange your voice..." Flames of the fire dying: / Wearily, cricket chirping. / Ah! Someone’s...»
«My imagination, obediently, / Conceives grey eyes. / In Tver, in my solitude, / It’s you I bitterly remember. Happily captive in another’s arms, / On the left bank of the Neva, / My famed contemporary, / You have all that you desired; You who told me: Enough, / Go now, quench you...»