Oh, Muse! I am at my coffin's door!
Be as it may, I am much to blame,
And let people's spite one hundred
Times more my sins' scope multiply –
Do not cry! Our drawn lot enviable,
They will not dispute this nor fight:
Between me and many honest hearts
You will not allow too long a rupture
In our living, breathing, blood union!
Some non-Russian will, without love,
Look upon you, pallid, blood-covered,
Flesh-flayed-by-a-thousand-strokes Muse...
О Муза! я у двери гроба!
Пускай я много виноват,
Пусть увеличит во сто крат
Мои вины людская злоба —
Не плачь! завиден жребий наш,
Не наругаются над нами:
Меж мной и честными сердцами
Порваться долго ты не дашь
Живому, кровному союзу!
Не русский — взглянет без любви
На эту бледную, в крови,
Кнутом иссеченную Музу…
«Like someone deaf, blind and mute, / For whom, the only thing left / Is the sense of smell, I breathe in / Dampness, mold, inclement weather / And fleeting, transient smoke...»
«Pray before sleep, / That you don’t wake up famous.»
«...And I simply wouldn’t come near it, / Renouncing all earthly goods. / “This place’s” guardian spirit / Became a snag in the woods. In this life, we are all merely guests, / Life, itself, is a habit, no doubt. / I can hear, in the aerial jets, / Two voices conversing aloud. O...»
«On hearing thunder, you’ll recall my face, / You’ll think: She wished for storms and lightning... / The skyline of hard-crimson will be widening, / The heart will be, as it was then, — ablaze. / It’ll happen on some Moscow day like this, / I’ll leave this city far behind for good...»