Out-up is a crescent; down, a wind is blowing.
Settling poplar wool is silvery and glowing.
Far ‘talianka* sobbing, solitary descant,
Is so sweetly homey and so sadly distant.
Crafty runs now giggle, now burst out crying.
Where are you, my linden? Age ol' mine, where are you?
Once, I also used to go to see a honey,
Fanning out ‘talianka, in the morn on Sunday.
Only I mean nothing to that honey these days.
Have to laugh and cry to someone else’s ditties.
___
* ‘talianka (from 'Italian') is an Italian fashion single-row button accordion, popular in Russia in the first half of the 20th century.
Над окошком месяц. Под окошком ветер.
Облетевший тополь серебрист и светел.
Дальний плач тальянки, голос одинокий —
И такой родимый, и такой далекий.
Плачет и смеется песня лиховая.
Где ты, моя липа? Липа вековая?
Я и сам когда-то в праздник спозаранку
Выходил к любимой, развернув тальянку.
А теперь я милой ничего не значу.
Под чужую песню и смеюсь и плачу.
«Never have I set eyes on the Bosphorus. / So please do not ask me what it’s like. / I have seen the fair sea in your glances / With a shimmering blue flame alight. To Baghdad I have not led a caravan, / I’ve not taken silk or henna there. / Bend your pretty figure, let me settle / B...»
«In a saffron land of an evening / The roses through fields softly run. / A song by Khayyam, darling, sing me, / Sing me his favourite one. / Thd roses through fields softly run. Shiraz is in moonlight swimming. / Like a moth swarm, bright stars throng the sky. / That Persian men make th...»
«Transparent and blue is the air, / I’ll go where the flowers are fair. / You, traveller, wandering there / Shall not find the hot desert’s glare. / Transparent and blue is the air. Resplendent as orchards—these fields. / With blooms in profusion they’re filled. / You cannot resi...»
«Moonlight with the chilliness of gold, / Scent of rosebay and of gillyflowers. / Through this kind blue country in such hours / Of tranquillity I like to stroll. Baghdad lies there faraway somewhere. / There Sheherazade told her stories. / She needs nothing now because the chorus / Of t...»