Sergey Esenin
Consume yourself with others’ pleas...

Consume yourself with others’ pleas —
I’m left to my devices, thinking
Of glassy smoke of tresses’ tease,
Autumnal weary eyelids blinking.

Oh, autumn comes! And it for me
than youth and summer is more precious.
But doubly pleasing you’re to me,
The poet’s thoughts your gust refreshes.

I truly never lie at all,
And therefore to the voice alluring
I’m able with bravado’s drawl
To say this rascal’s now maturing.

It’s time to get away from here
With naughty and rebellious daring,
My heart’s already sipped the beer —
A draft that tempers bloody flaring.

September’s come again somehow,
On window’s knocked the crimson willow
To see if I’d be ready now
For unassuming season’s billow.

I tolerate a lot of things
Without coercion or destruction.
It seems that Russia changes rings,
Its graves and huts face reconstruction.

And looking all around I see
In all my sundry times and places
That, sister, you alone can be
The one who poet friendship graces.

Grown up at last and steady now,
To you alone I might be able
To sing of twilit roads and how
Now left behind is life unstable.

Translated by Rupert Moreton