To M. L. Lozinsky
Nearing mysterious mountain tops,
I can’t defeat the fear I feel;
content with every swallow aloft,
I love how the bells rise into a peal.
I’m an ancient walker. A chasm reveals
a sagging bridge I approach and cross;
I think I can hear the snow uncongeal,
how the whole of time ticks on stone clocks.
But I’m no traveller whose name would stop
your eye on pages the light will steal.
There’s a grief I sing but keep concealed.
The flying bells bear my soul off,
but avalanches roll in the hills for real.
No music pulls me back from the drop.
М. Л. Лозинскому
Я чувствую непобедимый страх
В присутствии таинственных высот;
Я ласточкой доволен в небесах,
И колокольни я люблю полет!
И, кажется, старинный пешеход,
Над пропастью, на гнущихся мостках,
Я слушаю — как снежный ком растет
И вечность бьет на каменных часах.
Когда бы так! Но я не путник тот,
Мелькающий на выцветших листах,
И подлинно во мне печаль поет;
Действительно лавина есть в горах!
И вся моя душа — в колоколах —
Но музыка от бездны не спасет!
«In different clearness of rays, / In addling amalgam of visions / We always live in world’s things’ reign / With its triad of space division. And spreading borders of this life, / Or multiplying forms by fable, / To hide your I from not-I’s eyes / You will be never-never able. Th...»
«S. B. f-Shtein There is such love that’s similar to smoke: / If it is bound — it’s intoxicating, / Receiving freedom — vanished, not awaiting… / Be like the smoke — but in young years locked. There is such love that’s similar to shade: / If it is day — lay by your feet ...»
«You're again with me, my girlfriend autumn? / But through your net of the boughs bared, / Bluish tints were ne’er such pale and frozen, / And I don’t recall the snow more dead. I’ve not seen some sadder than your rabble, / And such black as all your lakes and streams, / In your skie...»
«But I tell you that there are not / The years, that I for empty hold, / The ways, without a goal set, / The messages that nothing had. / There’re not the worlds, I ever lost, / The gifts, I gave without good thoughts, / There’s not a love that’s a mistake, / That is deceived, tha...»