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.
Словно ветер страны счастливой,
Носятся жалобы влюбленных.
Как колосья созревшей нивы,
Клонятся головы непреклонных.
Запевает араб в пустыне —
«Душу мне вырвали из тела».
Стонет грек над пучиной синей —
«Чайкою в сердце ты мне влетела».
Красота ли им не покорна!
Теплит гречанка в ночь лампадки,
А подруга араба зерна
Благовонные жжет в палатке.
Зов один от края до края,
Шире, все шире и чудесней,
Угадали ли вы, дорогая,
В этой бессвязной и бедной песне?
Дорогая с улыбкой летней,
С узкими, слабыми руками
И, как мед двухтысячелетний,
Душными, черными волосами.
«Don't weep! Above the yellow steppe / Still hangs the same late summer heat / And they, with children on their backs, / Come still, with tired and stumbling feet. No tears! And as the crowd goes by / From Stalingrad to God knows where, / Don't try to catch their downcast eyes — / You ...»
«In Vyazma is an ancient house / Which once one night was home to us. That night we ate whatever came, / The source of drink was much the same. At dawn, we went away to fight / And one of us lived not till night. But this I know, that as he died, / We and the house were in his mind. That ...»
«to Valentina Serova That's how we live, without forgetting, / Today it's him, tomorrow I. / The cup of death goes round the table / And each must wait his turn to die. If I am blind to how you treat me. / It's not because I cannot see. / It is because, around the table, / The cup comes...»
«to Valentina Serova In a dream, I saw a wedding / And I think the bride was you. / You the bride and I a beggar / At the porch — it may be true! Let it happen as I dreamed it! / Only promise, as you stand / At the porch, to have the kindness — / Put no alms into my hand!»