Sergey Esenin
Sad now for me to watch your face...

Sad now for me to watch your face —
So ill, so pitying: remember,
Only the copper leaves remain
In our love’s sad September.

Other lips bore off your warmth,
Your body’s vibrancy—in vain,
As if, more than half-dead, your heart
Drizzled itself away in rain.

Well, what of that! I’m not afraid
Of it. Another joy has come
To me: see, nothing has remained,
Only the damp, the yellow dust.

You know I never saved myself
For the smiling life, quiet and staid.
Little of what has passed is dear,
And many the errors I have made.

Ah, life — amusing dissonance!
So it has been, will always be.
Like a graveyard the garden’s sown
With the clean bones of the birch-trees.

See, we two have run to seed.
Exhausted, like the garden’s guests;
If winter has no flowers, what need
For us to sadden or regret?

Translated by Geoffrey Thurley