O Time, you pursue me with legions of terrors
With painful disclosure, disfavour, dismay;
Today you denounce me for Yesterday's errors
And smash my delusions like castles of clay.
Who knew that old truths were so easily shaken?
Then why do you laugh at me, why such unkindness?
I erred in the things in which you were mistaken,
Repeating your words in my rapturous blindness!
Ты, время, вступаешь со мной врукопашную,
Пытаешь прозреньем, караешь презреньем,
Сегодня клеймишь за ошибки вчерашние
И крепости рушишь — мои заблужденья.
Кто знал, что окажутся истины зыбкими?
Чего же смеешься ты, мстя и карая?
Ведь я ошибался твоими ошибками,
Восторженно слово твое повторяя!
«I love you — though it makes me beat, / Though vain it seems, and melancholy — / Yet to this shameless, hapless folly / I’ll be confessing at your feet. / It ill becomes me: that I’m older, / Time I should be more sensible… / And yet the frivolous disorder / Fills every jitte...»
«I loved you once, and still, perhaps, love’s yearning / Within my soul has not quite burned away. / But may it nevermore you be concerning; / I would not wish you sad in any way. / My love for you was wordless, hopeless cruelly, / Drowned now in shyness, now in jealousy, / And I loved ...»
«I am your extended wife... / I am your extended wife. / You also have a wife — immediate. / I am needed in your life. / I commiserate completely. I know your child holds you back. / With you arms around me wound, / You are staring at the clock — / I won’t even make a sound. In ...»
«Wait for me and I’ll return, only wait very hard. / Wait when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain. / Wait when the wind sweeps the snowdrifts. / Wait in the sweltering heat. / Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays. / Wait even when from af...»