Sergey Esenin
I cried and cavorted in the spring rain...

I cried and cavorted in the spring rain,
                But the storm stopped.
You get dull to me, Sergei Esenin,
                Lift your eyes up...

Beneath sky and trees it’s dull to hear
                Your wings’ blind waves:
They can’t unfurl songs of past years
                Or grandfather graves!

That distant time of yours is tied down,
                Besieged by words.
Your dreams, it seems, don’t sing the wind
                But weighty tomes.

Someone sits, spreads his shoulders out,
                And cracks his joints.
Someone sees the red of your sunset,
                But you — not.

It will excite Briusov and Blok,
                Their group of friends.
But in the east the real day breaks
                And the sky flames.

Your songs don’t turn faces to the land,
                Nor make leaves shake...
Forever they pin against the door jamb
                A mouth-red streak.

Forever reach for what’s distant and lonely,
                For starry Pilate.
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,
                Let the sun set.

Translated by Don Mager