I sing when throat is moist, and soul is dry and cold,
And when my eye is damp, and mind does not dissemble:
How healthy is the wine? And will the wineskins hold?
And what about Colchian’s bloody coursing tremble?
Demure’s my breast, it has no words – it is not bold:
My song has ceased already – lips but breaths assemble,
My ear is scabbard-sheathed, my head is deaf and old.
It is a selfless song – itself its merit’s stitch:
To friends it is a joy, to foes it is but pitch.
It is a one-eyed song, and from the moss it grows,
A one-voiced gift that stems from hunter’s occupation,
This song is sung aloft by horseman as he goes,
Who freely makes with in- and exhalation,
Who canters onwards now in truth and jubilation
To bear the young to wedding feast, released from woes.
Пою, когда гортань сыра, душа — суха,
И в меру влажен взор, и не хитрит сознанье:
Здорово ли вино? Здоровы ли меха?
Здорово ли в крови Колхиды колыханье?
И грудь стесняется, — без языка — тиха:
Уже я не пою — поет мое дыханье —
И в горных ножнах слух, и голова глуха...
Песнь бескорыстная — сама себе хвала:
Утеха для друзей и для врагов — смола.
Песнь одноглазая, растущая из мха, —
Одноголосый дар охотничьего быта, —
Которую поют верхом и на верхах,
Держа дыханье вольно и открыто,
Заботясь лишь о том, чтоб честно и сердито
На свадьбу молодых доставить без греха.
«Please search for me in rays through spring leaves sweeping. / I am a bell, a brook, a sun spot sitting still. / I am the wings, elf-like, in twilight fleeting. / They wave. They were. They touched your window sill. Eternal friend, no farewell, no parting! / D'you hear? I'm here. Your han...»
«Snowflakes. Sundown. Fog covered silhouettes. / Roofs like the crests of the sea. / Strange drifts of ocher and rose, a-mellowing, / Atop cupolas they flee. Quiet. So quietly, sadly, and peacefully, / Lights look through windows at me... / Bells ring-a-ling, I imbibe sounds blissfully... ...»
«I sit in my room round and tiny / Awashed by the light from above, / Look up at the stuccoed skyline / Dawn-dusked by a sixty watt sun. My things, lit as well, they surround me: / The chairs, the table, the bed. / I pause, hands confused, where to hide them? / My thoughts race, unravel ...»
«Brightly lit from above I am sitting / in my circular room; this is I — / looking up at a sky made of stucco, / at a sixty-watt sun in that sky. All around me, and also lit brightly, / all around me my furniture stands, / chair and table and bed--and I wonder / sitting there what to d...»