One white and lonely sail out there,
amidst fog and the ocean’s blue.
What does it seek in distant lands?
What’s amiss in the land it knew?
Waves leap up into whistling wind;
the tall mast bends; the rigging creaks.
This isn’t a flight from trouble —
contentment is not what he seeks.
Splashing spray is brighter than sky,
when sunshine pours from above.
But he, rebellious, seeks the storm,
as if in the storm there were love.
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!
«We met there for the final time again / On the embankment, where we’d always go. / There was high water on the Neva then, / And all were scared that it may overflow He spoke about the summer and he said / A woman and a poet — too bizarre. / I still recall the Fortress overhead, / An...»
«Hi! Did you hear me rustle slightly / By your desk, just to the right? / You won’t finish what you’re writing — / I have come to you tonight. / Will you hurt me now by chance, / Like you did that time — / Saying that you don’t see hands, / These hands and eyes of mine. / Yo...»
«Armed with wasp-vision, with the vision of wasps / that suck, suck, suck the earth's axis, / I'm filled by the whole deep vein of my life / and hold it here in my heart and in vain. And I don't draw, don't sing, / don't draw a black-voiced bow over strings: / I only drink, drink, drink in...»
«Today is the name day of Our Lady of Smolensk, / Dark blue incense drifts over the grass, / And the flowing of the Requiem / Is no longer sorrowful, but radiant. / And the rosy little widows lead / Their boys and girls to the cemetery / To visit father’s grave. / But the grave...»