Достигшей немого отчаянья,
давно не молящейся богу,
иконку «Благое Молчание»
мне мать подарила в дорогу.
И ангел Благого Молчания
ревниво меня охранял.
Он дважды меня не нечаянно
с пути повернул. Он знал...
Он знал, никакими созвучьями
увиденного не передать.
Молчание душу измучит мне,
и лжи заржавеет печать...
«A titmouse journeyed to the sea, / Took one look, and announced that he / Would set the thing on fire. / The news spread quickly through the whole empire: From the jungle, all the beasts came on the run / To see how high the ocean's flames would leap; / Huge flocks of birds eclipsed the s...»
«The Donkey saw the Nightingale perched on a limb / Of a sycamore, and said to him: / “I’ve heard that you’re a splendid singer. Well, / I’d like to hear you sing myself, so I could tell — / Ahem! that is, evaluate — / Whether your gift is genuinely great.” The Nightingale be...»
«A Starling — one that sang a little flat, / But was (as all who knew him will aver) / A most esteemed philosopher — / Struck up a friendship with the family cat. / This Tom, unlike some of his kind, / Was nice, polite, and peaceably inclined. He chanced, one day, to miss his dinner: /...»
«A Monkey, growing old, had trouble seeing. / He’d heard, though, from a human being, / That there was nothing serious about his failing sight: / If he just got some spectacles, he’d be all right. So he got six pair, / And tried them on — all six at once, and almost everywhere: / He ...»