A silver sail, the ocean loner,
Is lurking in the azure mist.
What has she lost in foreign corners?
What in her homeland did she miss?
Her mast is clattering and bending
Midst whistling wind and raging wave.
Alas, she seeks no happy ending,
Nor runs from happiness away.
Beneath – the crystal torrent tempteth,
Above – the golden rays caress,
Yet she, rebellious, longs for tempests
As though a tempest granted rest.
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!
«Here I'm alone in evening hour calm, / I'll only think of you, I feel no qualm. I'll take up book but what I'll read is "she", / And soul again is drunk, distraught with thee. I'll throw myself on old and creaky bed, / The pillow burns... No, I won't sleep, I'll tread. I'll walk to window, ...»
«All of us — righteous and sinners, / Born in prison, raised at the altar, / All of us are funny actors / In the theater of the Creator. The Lord sits on His throne, / Merrily follows the show. / Brightly on His sumptuous gown / Sparkles and golden stars glow. Oh, how easy and pleasan...»
«All deserts are one tribe, from the beginning / of time, but Arabia, Syria, Gobi — / they're only ripples of the vast Sahara / wave that roared its satanic spite. The Red Sea heaves, and the Persian Gulf, / and Pamir stands thick with snow, / but Sahara's sand-floods / run straight to...»
«Unmoved by bullets, confrontations, / Unmoved by songs of celebration! / And so I gape, with admiration: / “What people! What a nation!” A nation — such, that with elation — / A mouthpiece of vastness stationed — / A poet, gapes with adoration, / Dumbstruck: O, what a nation! ...»