We drink life's cup with thirsty lips,
Our eyes shut fast to fears;
About the golden rim there drips
Our staining blood, our tears.
But when the last swift hour comes on,
The light long hid is lit,
From startled eyes the band is gone,
We suffer and submit.
It is not our part to possess
The cup that golden gleamed.
We see its shallow emptiness:
We did not drink — we dreamed.
Мы пьём из чаши бытия
С закрытыми очами,
Златые омочив края
Своими же слезами.
Когда же перед смертью с глаз
Завязка упадает,
И всё, что обольщало нас,
С завязкой исчезает —
Тогда мы видим, что пуста
Была златая чаша,
Что в ней напиток был — мечта,
И что она — не наша!
«The restaurants on hot spring evenings / Lie under a dense and savage air. / Foul drafts and hoots from drunken revelers / Contaminate the thoroughfare. / / Above the dusty lanes of suburbia / Above the tedium of bungalows / A pretzel sign begilds a bakery / And children screech for...»
«In the church choir a girl was singing About all the weary people in a strange land About all the ships far out on oceans About all who were forgetting the joys at hand. High in the steeple her voice was singing, A thin ray turning her shoulder white . From the dark everyone watched a...»
«Far up in empty mountains I met a shepherd Blowing low notes on a long alpine horn. Flowing pleasantly and loud, both song And horn were merely instruments for waking A more captivating mountain melody. Each time, after a few notes, the shepherd listened As the echo traveled back through narro...»
«Two wires are wrapped together, / The loose ends naked, exposed / A yes and no, not united, / Not united, but juxtaposed. / A dark, dark juxtaposition — / So close together, dead. / But resurrection awaits them; / And they await what waits ahead. / End will meet end in touching / ...»