I shall soon fall prey to rot.
Though it's hard to die, it's good to die;
I shall ask for no one's pity,
And there's no one who would pity me.
With my lyre I won no glory
For my noble family name;
And I die as distant from my people
As the day that I began to live.
Ties of friendship, unions of the heart —
All are broken: from my youth,
Fate has sent me foes implacable,
While my friends all perished in the struggle.
Their prophetic songs were left unfinished,
They fell victim to misfortune, were betrayed
In the bloom of life; and now their portraits watch me
From the walls, reproachfully.
Скоро стану добычею тленья.
Тяжело умирать, хорошо умереть;
Ничьего не прошу сожаленья,
Да и некому будет жалеть.
Я дворянскому нашему роду
Блеска лирой своей не стяжал;
Я настолько же чуждым народу
Умираю, как жить начинал.
Узы дружбы, союзов сердечных —
Всё порвалось: мне с детства судьба
Посылала врагов долговечных,
А друзей уносила борьба.
Песни вещие их не допеты,
Пали жертвою злобы, измен
В цвете лет; на меня их портреты
Укоризненно смотрят со стен.
«In those days the first words / Were heard in infantile melody, / Jehovah’s youthful anger roared / Above the world like spring thunder, And the cedars learned to cast their shade, / And Eve — she had only just fallen, / And her depths boiled with seed, / And the world was God, and ...»
«Oh, the unconquerable heaviness / Of these waters silenced / Behind centuries-old dams! Oh Lord! It’s still the same, it’s hard for me / With my heart full to overflowing, / And a muse who’s un-talkative.»
«The greedy saline soil had eaten everything. / I rooted out the twisted, writhen roots of / The vines that curled here once upon a time – / The earth was nubbly, desiccated, scabby, / Like a feverish sick woman’s lips... / Beneath its lacerated sole my foot / Grew calloused from lean...»
«So Hagar sits in obloquy / And gushing piteously / The spring pours out a threnody: / Be-er la-chai ro-yi. Those lands belong to Abraham, / But this expanse – to none: / In front of her, the wilderness / To Shur itself does run. Despair, despair instinctual! / In her Egyptian eyes,...»