I'm a bold and gallant rider
With a bold and gallant steed.
On with saddle.
On with bridle,
One-two-three, and off we speed.
I never eat
Till my horse is fed.
It goes to sleep
Then I go to bed.
By day I lead my horse about.
By night I mount and gallop out.
We race along in clouds of dust —
My horse is worth its hay,
And all the lorries, trams and cars
Stop still and give us way.
Я сам проворен и удал,
И конь мой весь в меня.
Я сам взнуздал,
И оседлал,
И покатил коня.
Я сам поем —
И конь мой сыт.
Я спать ложусь —
И конь мой спит.
Я целый день вожу коня,
А ночью конь везет меня.
Во весь опор, взметая пыль,
Несется он вперед,
И легковой автомобиль
Дорогу нам дает.
«I shall come into your dream / As a black ewe, approach the throne / On withered and infirm / Legs, bleating: "Padishah, Have you dined well? You who hold / The world like a bead, beloved / of Allah, was my little son / To your taste, was he fat enough"»
«Down and away flew the melting snow; / cheeks burned red and glistened. / I had not thought the moon was so small / or the clouds so smokily distant. Asking for nothing, I’ll go away, / for my number is up, for ever. / I had not thought the moon was so fair / or so feaful up in heaven...»
«This, not graveyard roses, is my gift; / And I won’t burn sticks of incense: / You died as unflinchingly as you lived, / With magnificent defiance. / Drank wine, and joked — were still the wittiest, / Choked on the stifling air. / You yourself let in the terrible guest And stayed al...»
«After plodding year after year / through towns in an alien land, / we have ground enough to despair — / and despair is where we must end. For despair is our final refuge — / as if, midwinter, we had come / from Vespers in a nearby church, / through Russian snow, to our home.»