From a Wayfarer's Letters
II
I have treated my heart with a ruthless abandon
In poetry, in friendship, in grief and in passion.
Forgive me, my darling. Let bygones be bygones.
I suffer. Yet all this is joy in its fashion.
And even my black fits of burning depression,
The starting at shadows, the nervous reaction
To trifles which nourish my fearful obsession
With doom and disastei, are joy in their fashion.
I care not if I choke on these tears' salt insurgence,
Reproaches may flay me, like wet branches lashing.
More fearful by far are indifference, indulgence.
Love never forgives, yet is joy—in its fashion.
For love brooks no rival, expects no compassion.
Love — now I know it — can kill and destroy,
Just so long as it's beautiful, live and impassioned,
Just so long as it's not a mere pastime, but joy.
Я сердце своё никогда не щадила:
Ни в песне, ни в дружбе, ни в ни в страсти…
Прости меня, милый. Что было, то было
Мне горько. И всё-таки всё это — счастье.
И то, что я страстно, горюче тоскую,
И то, что, страшась небывалой напасти,
На призрак, на малую тень негодую.
Мне страшно… И всё-таки всё это — счастье.
Пускай эти слёзы и это удушье,
Пусть хлещут упрёки, как ветки в ненастье.
Страшней — всепрощенье. Страшней — равнодушье.
Любовь не прощает. И всё это — счастье.
Я знаю теперь, что она убивает,
Не ждёт состраданья, не делится властью.
Покуда прекрасна, покуда живая,
Покуда она не утеха, а — счастье.
«Drained — taken — overcome — / — Flat on my back! — I will die. / Like Polyxena, who beheld Achilles / There, on the wall — In red — a bloody tower on the horizon / Of bodies he had laid low. / Like Polyxena praying: "Who is this?" / (And knew — the pyre!) The unite...»
«O you — of all below-line notes / The lowest! — Let's put an end to our quarrel! / Like that consumptive woman, who moaned / All night: ravish me again! Who wrung her hands, as fights / And close blows and ropes of oaths intruded. / (Her sailor — no longer handsome — slept / As...»
«The cry of stations: don't go! / Of terminals: take pity! / And that of the brief stops: / Not exactly Dante's / Benediction: / "Abandon hope!" / And that of the engines. Whose iron shuddered / Like the thunder of an ocean wave. / At the tiny ticket-window, / It crossed my mind ...»
«Blanch — faced / Guardian of the age-old lapping — / Knight, knight, / Keeping watch on the river. (O could I find peace / In it from arms and mouths?!) / Sen — ti — nel / Set at your post of partings. The oaths, the rings... / Yes, like stones into the river / How many —...»