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.
«I winced. Catching fire, I shivered with cold, / Just made a proposal of marriage. Too late — / I was nervous and frightened; her answer was no. — / I am grieved with her tears. And more blessed than a saint! I went out on the square. It seemed I was born / for a second time. Each insig...»
«A cardboard box of sugared orange — / My little garret. / No need to trudge through dingy lodgings / To the mortuary! I moved again into this room — / From superstition. / The paper on the walls is brown, / The door is singing. I h...»
«Time’s river in its rushing course / carries away all human things, / drowns in oblivion’s abyss / peoples and kingdoms and their kings. And if the trumpet or the lyre / should rescue something, small or great, / eternity will gulp it down / and it will share the common fate.»
«O Thou Eternal One! whose presence bright / All space doth occupy, all motions guide; / Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight; / Thou only God! There is no God beside! / Being of all beings! Mighty One! / Whom none could comprehend and none explore; / Who fillst existence with ...»