There's a season alight with its own, strange shimmer
Of misted sun, most tenderly warm.
People call it
Indian summer
And it rivals the spring itself in charm.
Already the flying gossamer's clinging
Lightly, warily round the face...
How full is the tone of the late birds' singing!
How fierce and festive the flower-beds blaze!
The great rains have long since passed in thunder,
The dark, silent field has yielded its
More often a glance strikes a spark of wonder
More seldom, but blacker the jealous fits fall.
O generous wisdom of Indian summer,
I welcome you gratefully, but: Do you hear,
My lost love, where are you? Where are you? Come, answer!
But the woods have grown silent, the stars more austere...
You see now—the season of stardust is over.
I suppose it is time that we parted — and yet
It is only just now I've begun to discover
How to love and to cherish, forgive — and forget.
___
* In Russian Indian summer is called "Woman's summer".
Есть время природы особого света,
неяркого солнца, нежнейшего зноя.
Оно называется
бабье лето
и в прелести спорит с самою весною.
Уже на лицо осторожно садится
летучая, легкая паутина...
Как звонко поют запоздалые птицы!
Как пышно и грозно пылают куртины!
Давно отгремели могучие ливни,
все отдано тихой и темною нивой...
Все чаще от взгляда бываю счастливой,
все реже и горше бываю ревнивой.
О мудрость щедрейшего бабьего лета,
с отрадой тебя принимаю... И все же,
любовь моя, где ты, аукнемся, где ты?
А рощи безмолвны, а звезды все строже...
Вот видишь — проходит пора звездопада,
и, кажется, время навек разлучаться...
...А я лишь теперь понимаю, как надо
любить, и жалеть, и прощать, и прощаться.
«O childhood! Scoop ladle of heart’s profundity! / O native groves and forests where / Confidence in self was firmly planted, / My inspirer, my overseer! What tears have dried themselves on window panes! / What wasps devoured the festering roses! / How often chaotic turmoil fades away / ...»
«Could I forget them? Kinfolk, / The seas? Caress a rail ticket? / For an orgy of the senses — a trap? / In a tempest — the crowd, a horde? A window, a compartment, provisions? / To get off somewhere? Unload somewhere? Settle down? / I relish the torment. — These scars! / Your lion...»
«So it begins. Year two rushes / From nurse into the darkness of melodies, / It whistles, it chirps, — then words / Begin around the third year. Thus does understanding begin. / And in the start-up noise of the turbine / It seems, that mother — is not mother. / You’re — not you, ...»
«This is how they start. At two years / They dash from their nannies into melody's darkness, / They chirp, they whistle, - and words / Appear around year three. This is how they start to understand. / And through the roar of the ignited turbine / It comes to seem that mother isn't mother. ...»