What grasshopper-clocks are singing —
Fever is murmuring mad,
And the withered stove is rustling
Like a silk that’s burning red.
What the teeth of mice are nibbling
The slim-bottomed life to naught —
Is the swallow or her sibling
That cut loose my wretched boat.
Rain on tiles bubbles like a burning
Silk of black, but cherry tree
Will be hearing and forgiving
At the bottom of the sea.
Death is innocent, therefore
There is nothing that can heal
In that nightingale’s fever
Beating heart that is warm still.
Что поют часы-кузнечик,
Лихорадка шелестит
И шуршит сухая печка, —
Это красный шелк горит.
Что зубами мыши точат
Жизни тоненькое дно, —
Это ласточка и дочка
Отвязала мой челнок.
Что на крыше дождь бормочет, —
Это черный шелк горит,
Но черемуха услышит
И на дне морском: прости.
Потому что смерть невинна
И ничем нельзя помочь,
Что в горячке соловьиной
Сердце теплое еще.
«The sense that love is coming's worse / Than love itself. Love is like war — / You've come together, eye to eye. / You're with her — nothing more in store. The approach of love is like a storm: / You feel a dampness in your pores / But still it's calm — the piano's sound / Can y...»
«to Valentina Serova I buried love and doomed myself to be / Its monument. Above the recent grave / Upon myself I carved a dozen lines, / Beyond my strength and posthumously brave. Love, like a runner in the marathon, / Had reached the tape but yet had lost all breath. / My love had lost ...»
«to Valentina Serova I cannot write a single line of verse, / Not to the girl you were, nor to you now. / And after all the bitter words we've said / Why should we meet again for one more row? For what you gave when I was with you — thanks! / I never reckoned the precise degree / Of how...»
«My sister — life — in a flood of spring rain / Has bruised herself blue all around us today, / But people in watches seem peevish and vain / And bite so politely, like vipers in hay. The old have their motives for such goings on, / Your motives moat likely are silly, I'll bet: / That ...»