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.
«I yearn to live in wild extremes, / Perpetuating things and places / And incarnating all that's faceless — / To carry out all broken dreams. And while life’s nightmare chokes, persisting, / And in my sleep I suffocate, / Perhaps the future, near or distant / Will bring a glad lad, w...»
«May be, in my previous a-being, / I’ve cut the throats of my Mom and Dad, / If in this one — Lord of all the living! — / I have been doomed to suffering like that. If I call for dogs of mine, aloud, / Or just try my own horse to see, / Not obeying all my signs and shouts, / The...»
«In my night-time fever / I see you, O / Winged Victory of Samothrace, / reaching out your arms. First night-silence runs / from you, then your blind / inexorable driving flight / brings giddiness, whirling sick. Your crazy-bright eyes / laugh, and blaze, / and our shadows run behin...»
«At my window pane / A somber birch tree / Is newly adorned / By the frost’s whimsy. It’s like bunches of grapes / That hang from branch tips — / And the mournful shapes / Are a joy to contemplate. I watch the daylight spread / To play along the branches; / But when birds alig...»