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.
«When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient, / Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread. / What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation, / When compared with the gentle piper's tread? And she came in, threw out the mantle's edges, / Declined to me with a sincere heed. / I say to he...»
«Muse went away by the road, / The autumnal, narrow, steep, / And her swarthy feet were slopped, / With large drops of dew in her slip. I begged her, with hope and fear, / To stay till the winter’s white lace, / She answered, “There is a grave here, / How can you still breathe in su...»
«Something of heavens ever burns in it, / I like to watch its wondrous facets' growth. / It speaks with me in fate's non-seldom fits, / When others fear to approach close. When the last of friends had looked away / From me in grave, it lay to me in silence, / And sang as sing a thunderstor...»
«My hands clasped under a veil, dim and hazy... / "Why are you so pale and upset?" / That’s because I today made him crazy / With the sour wine of regret. Can't forget! He got out, astound, / With his mouth distorted by pain... / I, not touching the railing, ran down, / I was running t...»