Three songs there be that thrill the human breast —
Three songs with human joy and sorrow laden.
And one of them is happier than the rest —
The song a mother sings beside a cradle.
The second by a mother, too, is sung —
Caressing icy cheeks with mourning fingers,
She sings it at the graveside of a son.
The third is sung hy all the other singers.
Есть три заветных песни у людей,
И в них людское горе и веселье.
Одна из песен всех других светлей —
Ее слагает мать над колыбелью.
Вторая — тоже песня матерей.
Рукою гладя щеки ледяные,
Ее поют над гробом сыновей...
А третья песня — песни остальные.
Пер. Н. Гребнева
«To flourish amid the incessant hell / Of steps, now heavy, now loud, / And groaning pulleys and fumes, / And the clicking of billiard balls. To make love till a streak / Of blood red flares up in the East, / An hour, till a white kerchief / Copes with a scythe. To feed to Reproaches a...»
«I could have loved the winter, / But the burden is heavy. / Even smoke cannot / Escape into the clouds. The sharply etched lines, / The unwieldy flight, / The pauperish blue / Of the tear-swollen ice. But I love snow, weakened / By the easy life above, / Sometimes glistening white,...»
«The yellow steam of Petersburg’s winter. / The yellow snow which clings to the flagstones... / I don’t know where you are, and where we are. / Only that we are part of each other. Did the tsar’s decree create us? / Did the Swedes forget to drown us? / Instead of a fairy tale our pas...»
«Beneath a shaggy fir tree, / Above a noisy stream / The devil’s swing is swinging, / Pushed by his hairy hand. He swings the swing while laughing, / Swing high, swing low, / Swing high, swing low, / The board is bent and creaking, / The rope is taut and chafing / Against a heavy b...»