Franz Josef Land
In a freezing sea
Is where I’ll forget
You abandoned me.
Rot! I’m aware
On those Polar nights
You’ll shimmer there
In the Northern Lights
And the Polar dawns
Will ripple as those
Long fingers of yours
Spread over the floes.
Thrifty with light is
The Polar Sun.
It’s time you showed it
What can be done.
I need no company —
I want to go shares
In black solitude
With white Polar bears.
Есть земля на севере
Францева Иосифа —
Там навек забуду я,
Что меня ты бросила.
Полно разговаривать,
Знаю я заранее —
Будешь ты участвовать
В северном сиянии.
Знаю я заранее,
Что зарю над льдинами
Будешь пошевеливать
Пальчиками длинными.
Солнышко на севере
Малым светом тратится,
Ждут давно на полюсе
Твоего вмешательства.
Мне людей не надобно,
Мне делиться хочется
С белыми медведями
Черным одиночеством.
«To Z. N. Gippius Enough’s enough: don’t wait, don’t hope; / My wretched people scatter! / Fall into space and shatter, / Year upon tormented year. Beggarly, will-less age. / Permit me, oh my motherland. / To sob in your damp fatuous freedom / To weep amid your empty steppes: — ...»
«He loved these three things / White peacocks, evening songs, / And worn-out maps of America. / No crying of children, / No raspberry tea, / No women's hysterics… / I was married to him.»
«I wrung my hands under my dark veil… / "Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?" / — Because I have made my loved one drunk / with an astringent sadness. I’ll never forget. He went out, reeling; / his mouth was twisted, desolate . . . / I ran downstairs, not touching the banister...»
«Dark my veil. Hands clenched painfully, tightly. / "Why so white-faced?" "To think, just to think! / It was I made him to drink; of the biting / Wine of sorrow I forced him to drink. "How forget? Out he staggered with failing / Strength, and face oddly twisted and grim. / I ran down ...»