...No grass ever grows
Making baskets for us
Is their lives’ sole purpose —
Making baskets from the straw,
Weightless basket service.
On the moon, twilight looms
Houses are neater
On the moon, no homes,
Only pigeon quarters
Bluish homes — bluish homes —
Wondrous pigeon quarters...
…На луне не растёт
Ни одной былинки;
На луне весь народ
Делает корзинки —
Из соломы плетёт
Легкие корзинки.
На луне — полутьма
И дома опрятней;
На луне не дома —
Просто голубятни;
Голубые дома —
Чудо-голубятни.
«O, burst out laughing, laughers! / O, set your laughing, laughers! / You who laugh with laughter and you who laugh off laughably, / O, laugh away laughingly! / O, laughable laughing-stocks' — the laughter of laughsome laughers! / O, laugh-in enlaughingly, the laughter of outlaughing lau...»
«Farewell, farewell, unwashed Russia, / The land of slaves, the land of lords, / And you, blue uniforms of gendarmes, / And you, obedient to them folks. Perhaps beyond Caucasian mountains / I’ll hide myself from your pashas, / From their eyes that are all-seeing, / From their ever...»
«Farewell! — unwashed, indigent Russia, / The land of slaves, the state of lords, / And you, its navy-coated marshals, / And you, their dedicated herds. Perhaps, behind Caucasian ridges / I will be safe from your emirs, / From their all-overseeing preachers, / From their all-overhe...»
«In the wild north a pine tree stands alone / On the bare top of a mountain. / It slumbers and sways, covered with / Powdery snow like a mantle. And it dreams constantly: that in faraway wilds / In the land where the sun rises, / A cheerless and l...»