Goldfinch, friend, I'll cock my head —
let's check the world out, just me and you:
this winter's day pricks like chaff;
does it sting your eyes too?
Boat-tailed, feathers yellow-black,
sopped in colour beneath your beak,
do you get, you goldfinch you,
just how you flaunt it?
What's he thinking, little airhead? —
white and yellow, black and red!
Both eyes check both ways — both! —
will check no more — he's bolted!
Мой щегол, я голову закину —
Поглядим на мир вдвоем:
Зимний день, колючий, как мякина,
Так ли жестк в зрачке твоем?
Хвостик лодкой, перья черно-желты,
Ниже клюва в краску влит,
Сознаёшь ли — до чего щегол ты,
До чего ты щегловит?
Что за воздух у него в надлобье —
Чёрн и красен, жёлт и бел!
В обе стороны он в оба смотрит — в обе! —
Не посмотрит — улетел!
«Maple bare of foliage, freezing in the snowstorm, / Why are you bent over as the wind is blowing? Have you witnessed something? Have you heard some tidings? / It's as if beyond the village you've gone striding. Like a drunken watchman, straying off the roadway, / In a drift you tumbled, now ...»
«At the village end, the old hut stands alone. / There prays aged mother before an icon. Her prayer remembers her son, and his friends, / Now saving their homeland, in far-off lands. She prays, drying the tears, and fighting mirages, / For her tired eyes see frightening images. She sees a fi...»
«On heavenly blue course, a fiery star — / As if ready to char the forests and perish / With them in yellow clouds of honeyed / Smoke, the sun prepares for a rest. / Dreamy night falls. People fall asleep. / Only I torment myself. I wish; I weep... Among the clouds, the tall evergreens /...»
«Behind the cloudy horizon — just / like future in my heavenly chart — / who can see if the coming gusts / will bring a rest for my heart. Or the grey clouds returning / will bring more dread to my heart. / The old wounds, fireless burning, / old sorrows again will smart. Behind the...»