For four years on end
Immortal was I.
For four years on end
Light-hearted was I.
For I never knew I would die one fine day,
For I never knew I would not live for aye.
You who know how to make life sweet and pleasant,
Like children, immortal — believe not in death;
Death's time is the future — but never the present,
Though you may be breathing your very last breath.
Года четыре был я бессмертен,
Года четыре был я беспечен,
Ибо не знал я о будущей смерти,
Ибо не знал я, что век мой не вечен.
Вы, что умеете жить настоящим,
В смерть, как бессмертные дети, не верьте.
Миг этот будет всегда предстоящим —
Даже за час, за мгновенье до смерти.
«The rules of winter we obey. / We roll a snowball and run after, / Acclaim its growth with peals of laughter, / And brush the surplus snow away. As if misfortune were in view, / The people passing by assemble / Along the fence with lips atremble / To watch what you and I shall do. We m...»
«I watch the scooter's flight / And feel my envy growing! / My eyes are hot and bright / With summer's quick tears flowing. A girl with winning smile / Clings closely to the rider. / A humpy sluggish snail / Do I appear beside her. Farewell! Ride at your ease / To where green summits ...»
«Our sacred craft has existed / For thousands of years.... / With it, luminous even in darkness is earth. / But no poet has ever insisted, / Through laughter or tears, / That there is no wisdom, no age, no death.»
«In all the world no people are so tearless. / So proud, so simple as are we. / 1922 In lockets for a charm we do not wear it, / In verse about its sorrows do not weep, / With Eden's blissful vales do not compare it, / Untroubled does it leave our bitter sleep. / To traffic in it is a t...»