Nikolay Gumilev
Elephant Calf

My love to you is now a little calfy,
An elephant born in Berlin or Paris
Who tramples with his feet that are all water
About the rooms of a managerie owner.

Don't try to offer him French buns or bagels,
Don't try to offer him large heads of cabbage
For he can only eat a tangerine section,
A lump of sugar or a tiny candy.

Don't cry, o sweet, that in his narrow cages
He will become the laughing stock of rabble
With salesmen puffing their cigars
Straight in his nose and midinettes giggling.

Don't think, my heart, that there will come a morning
When, furious, he'll break his chains and heavy
Will run the streets and like a bus knock down
Whole mobs of people screaming panic-stricken.

No, let you see him in your dream, at day-break,
Brocade and brass and ostrich feathers on him,
Like on the one, magestic, who was carrying
To frightened Rome the Splendid Hannibalis.

Translated by Olga Slobodkina-von Bromssen

(Nikolay Gumilev`s site)