The hot sultry summer
Comes dazzling by degrees.
The grass, scorched by the sun,
Is dressed in a moist vapor.
The burdock, yellowed by heat,
Unfolds its pink armour
And stands, choking with flies,
Beneath the tall windows of a hut.
In the bloom of nature
There's a brief moment of surfeit,
A time when the heads of plants
Let a pearl-white gum secrete.
Love's trappings have ebbed,
Passion has run dry, yet the past's flame
Dies in embers and wades in the blood,
Troubling not the body, but the brain.
But the flame fades towards midday,
And in the heaven's midst
Only nature, pausing,
Feels the patch of deadly heat.
Понемногу вступает в права
Ослепительно знойное лето.
Раскаленная солнцем трава
Испареньями влаги одета.
Пожелтевший от зноя лопух
Развернул розоватые латы
И стоит, задыхаясь от мух,
Под высокими окнами хаты.
Есть в расцвете природы моей
Кратковременный миг пресыщенья,
Час, когда перламутровый клей
Выделяют головки растенья.
Утомились орудья любви,
Страсть иссякла, но пламя былое
Дотлевает и бродит в крови,
Уж не тело, но ум беспокоя.
Но к полудню заснет и оно,
И в средине небесного свода
Лишь смертельного зноя пятно
Различит, замирая, природа.
«Why do you pretend to be / A wind, a bird, or a stone? / Why do you smile at me / From the sky with a sudden dawn? Do not torment me, do not touch! / Leave me to wise cares, away! / The inebriated flame sways / Over dried-up marshes gray. And Muse in a torn kerchief / Sings disconsol...»
«Transparent glass of empty sky / The bleached-out bulky prison building / And churchgoers' solemn singing / Over Volkhov, growing blue with light. September wind tore birch leaves off / Through branches tossed and screamed with hate / And city recollects its fate: / Here ruled Martha an...»
«I Smells like burning. For four weeks now / The dry ground on the swamplands bakes. / Today even birds did not sing songs / And the aspen-tree does not shake. Sun has stopped in divine displeasure / Easter rain did not pelt fields hard. / A one-legged passerby came here / And alone sai...»
«That voice, with great quietude arguing, / Had a victory over her. / In me still, like song or woe, / Is last winter before the war. She was whiter than Smolny Cathedral / More mysterious than summer garden at noon / We didn't know that in parting sadness / We'd be looking back soon.»