Where firs by snow all silvered stand,
Where palms grow in the golden south,
From home to home, from land to land,
His words pass on from mouth to mouth.
On shores both near and far away,
By more than one new generation
In all five continents, today
His name is held in veneration.
He is enthroned in peoples' hearts,
And is beloved in every clime.
In one, though, he commenced his path
Unheard of since the birth of time.
A land where grief and fury reigned,
Where peals of brewing thunder rolled,
And where he loved his native tongue,
Its mines of eloquence untold.
He loved her skies, her steppes so vast,
Her mounting wind of liberty...
What can be nobler than to love
One's native land as Lenin did.
Под сосен снежным серебром,
Под пальмой юга золотого,
Из края в край, из дома в дом
Проходит ленинское слово.
Уже на дальних берегах,
Уже не в первом поколенье,
Уже на всех материках
И чтут и любят имя: Ленин!
В сердцах народных утвержден,
Во всех краях он стал любимым,
Но есть страна одна, где он
Свой начал путь неповторимый,
Где были ярость, ночь, тоска,
И грохот бурь в дороге длинной,
Где он родного языка
Любил могучие глубины,
И необъятный небосклон,
И всё растущий вольный ветер...
Любить Россию так, как он, —
Что может быть святей на свете!
«I'm careless of the ode’s exalted sentence / And of the elegy’s delicious guile. / I say the verse should ill befit the senses, / Escape the common file. If you could know what gibberish empowers / The verse that grows, from all abashment freed, / Like dandelions’ yellow summer fl...»
«How is your life with that other one? / Simpler, is it? A stroke of the oars / and a long coastline — / and the memory of me is soon a drifting island / (not in the ocean — in the sky!) / Souls — you will be sisters — / sisters, not lovers. How is your life with an ordinary / ...»
«How is living with another? / Simpler? The thud of oars! — / Memories of me soon start to / Drift like wave-lines by the shores, I’m the island in the distance, / (Not on water! — in the sky!) / Souls! — You’re destined to be sisters / And not lovers in this life! How is li...»
«“I’m not leaving! — This isn’t the end!” And she clings and clings... / But in her breast — the swell / Of looming waters, / Of notes... Count on it: sealed as / A sacrament: we’re bound to leave each other!»