I’ve never been even once in a bar-room,
I’ve never drunk whisky neat with sailors,
I’ll never, I guess, on a horse go charging
Across the desert steppes of Arabia.
I'm not cut out for hauling in canvas,
For waving an oar, braving stormy weather.
She loves a young salt, does the Atlantic,
With crooked legs and lungs of leather...
Sheer walls of ice will squeeze our timbers,
We’ll walk across a freezing wilderness —
That is, if Amundsen gives me a glimpse of
The Pole, albeit from a distance.
It may be a long time before I travel,
But with what delight when a storm is brewing,
Sensing the Ukraine in my marrow,
I’d spend a tropical night on duty.
I’ve never seen nights like that in Chernigov
Where copses drowse at the height of summer,
Nights when the stars their way are feeling
And on the moon in darkness stumble...
At twelve they would close the gates upon us.
Through crowds I’d go racing down the Fontanka,*
Fancying still: it lay round the corner,
That waterhole where wild tigers gather.
___
*Fontanka, the embankment of the Fontanka river in Leningrad.
Я в жизни ни разу не был в таверне,
Я не пил с матросами крепкого виски,
Я в жизни ни разу не буду, наверно,
Скакать на коне по степям аравийским.
Мне робкой рукой не натягивать парус,
Веслом не взмахнуть, не кружить в урагане, —
Атлантика любит соленого парня
С обветренной грудью, с кривыми ногами...
Стеной за бортами льдины сожмутся,
Мы будем блуждать по огромному полю, —
Так будет, когда мне позволит Амундсен
Увидеть хоть издали Северный полюс.
Я, может, не скоро свой берег покину,
А так хорошо бы под натиском бури,
До косточек зная свою Украину,
Тропической ночью на вахте дежурить.
В черниговском поле, над сонною рощей
Подобные ночи еще не спускались, —
Чтоб по небу звезды бродили на ощупь
И в темноте на луну натыкались...
В двенадцать у нас запирают ворота,
Я мчал по Фонтанке, смешавшись с толпою,
И все мне казалось: за поворотом
Усатые тигры прошли к водопою.
«Without trace day has sunk. Turning yellow, the / Moon’s hazy disk, still shadowless, looks on the / Balcony, and in the despair of windows flung / Open are drearily white walls, already unseeing. This moment night begins. The clouds are so black. / I pity the evening’s last instant: al...»
«Does it not seem to you at times, when / Twilight walks through the house, that / Right here alongside us is another element. / In which we live quite differently? So softly there has shadow merged with / Shadow, and there such moments can occur, / That it is as though we penetrated / E...»
«The joyful day blazes... Amid the languid grass, / Everywhere are poppies in patches-like eager / Impotence, like lips filled with temptation / and Poison, like outspread wings of scarlet butterflies. The joyful day blazes... But the garden is both empty / And overgrown. It has long since f...»
«Poppies at Midday Scentlessly and flowerily someone’s / Delicate enfolding is opened — / Wings of scarlet cambric have / Unrolled and will not quiver... Offending with their bloodstained spot / All that cherishes-distance and / Nearness — the ...»