Nikolay Gumilev
Like the wind of a happy country...

Like the wind of a happy country
the complaints of those in love carry.
Like the ears of ripened corn
the heads of the unbowed bow.

An Arab sings in the desert:
«They ripped my soul from my body».
The Greek groans above the blue depths:
«You flew into my soul like a seagull.»

Beauty is their slave!
The Greek woman tends the icon lamps by night,
and the Arab's friend roasts
fragrant beans in the tent.

There is a single call from one land to another,
wider, more wide and more miraculous:
have you divined it, my darling,
in this poor, incoherent song?

Darling, with the summer smile,
with slender, weak hands,
and with your stifling, black hair
like two-thousand-year-old honey.

Translated by Richard McKane