Did I murder my father, murder my mother,
in some other life ?
Yes, oh immortal, eternal God, yes! or how
could I deserve this disgrace of suffering?
I lead a life as peaceful as death,
everything I do belongs to someone else, nothing
to me—except a languid, worthless,
distinctly platonic love...
Oh to run, to hide like a thief
— in Africa, as I hid before, to lie
beneath some royal sycamore
and never rise.
Darkness would wrap me in velvet,
the moon would dress me in silver,
and maybe the wind could forget
that, once, I worked in an office.
Вероятно, в жизни предыдущей
Я зарезал и отца и мать,
Если в этой — Боже Присносущий! —
Так позорно осужден страдать.
Каждый день мой, как мертвец, спокойный,
Все дела чужие, не мои,
Лишь томленье вовсе недостойной,
Вовсе платонической любви.
Ах, бежать бы, скрыться бы, как вору,
В Африку, как прежде, как тогда,
Лечь под царственную сикомору
И не подниматься никогда.
Бархатом меня покроет вечер,
А луна оденет в серебро,
И быть может не припомнит ветер,
Что когда-то я служил в бюро.
«They stood almost blocking the pavement and stores, / As if scanning the wares in a show window’s glare; / The stretcher slid though past the ambulance doors, / The medics jumped in; they drove into the square. And passing by sidewalks, by courtyards and gapers, / Through tumult and chaos...»
«1 The air reeks with smolder. For all of four weeks / Dry peat in the bogs has been burning. / Even the birdsong is mute and discreet, / And the aspen tree’s tremble lacks yearning. Sunlight that sears speaks of Godly disfavor, / Not a sprinkle of rainfall since Easter. / In the cour...»
«White churches stand tall and there’s resonant, glistening ice, / And the cornflower-blue is abloom in my son’s precious gaze. / Nights strung with diamonds hang high on the ancient town’s heights, / More yellow than linden-flower honey the sickle-moon’s rays. Dry blizzards blow in fr...»
«(The Overseas Ostrich) Here I come, / in feathers of stanzas, meter and rhyme, / an overseas ostrich, in sum, / is what I’m. / Trying, do I, my poor noggin to hide, / to deep under jangling of plumage abide. I’m not yours, you snow-smothered monstrosity! / Deep, burrow deep / int...»