Sergey Esenin
Both this street and this little house...

Both this street and this little house
Have been long so familiar to me.
Up the window the blue straws of wires
Are weighed down as they once used to be.

There've been years of austere contingency
Years of vehement endeavours, too.
I remember my village, my infancy
And the countryside heaven of blue.

I did not search for fame and complacence
For I know all the price of reward.
As I sleep now I fancy the presence
Of my near and dear abode.

There's the garden in livid speckles,
August sleeps on the railing lines.
Chirping birds fly around in circles
And repose in the clutches of limes.

I was fond of this wooden house,
Logs had menacing heated might,
Our stove would let out strange howls
As we tended the fire at night.

It was wailing loud like funnel
As if mourning and suffering pain.
What on earth did he see, mason's camel,
In the pouring and howling rain?

Well, it probably saw distant bounds
And the dream of a blooming phase,
Like Afghanistan's sandy grounds
And Bukhara's translucent haze.

Well, I know very well those locations
I've been there as a travelling man.
Now I want to select destinations
But as close to my home as I can.

Golden slumbers have now faded out,
All has vanished in haze like foam.
Peace to you, grasses scattered about,
Peace to you, wooden parents home!

Translated by Alec Vagapov