Poor poet, was that really you,
addressing the moon in rhyme?
My eyes were dulled so long ago
by love, by cards and wine.
The moon climbs through the window frame.
White light, so white it blinds you...
I bet on the Queen of Spades,
but I played the Ace of Diamonds.
Сочинитель бедный, это ты ли
Сочиняешь песни о луне?
Уж давно глаза мои остыли
На любви, на картах и вине.
Ах, луна влезает через раму,
Свет такой, хоть выколи глаза...
Ставил я на пиковую даму,
А сыграл бубнового туза.
«I didn’t lock the door / And candles weren’t lit, / Exhausted, sleepy, sore, — / I wouldn’t sleep a bit. I’d watch lights dying down, / And gloomy evening firs, / And get drunk on the sounds / A voice, so much like yours. My loss - a heavy burden / And life is agony! / I ...»
«The threshing barn is stifling and hot, / I laugh, but in my heart, I weep from spite. / My old friend mumbles to me: “Jinx it not, / Can’t you discern that luck is on our side!” I listen to my old friend’s words with doubt. / He’s lost his sight, he’s ludicrous and vile. / He...»
«Bury me, bury me, wind! / None of my kin had arrived, / Above me, the evening dimmed / And the earth indistinctly sighed. Like you, I was free and of course, / I couldn’t resist life’s charms / And now, wind, you see my corpse, / With no one to fold my arms. Let this black wound re...»
«Not the snake fangs, but the stinging / Heartache emptied out my veins. / A quiet girl, I call love, singing / Birdlike in the whitened plains. The other road closed long ago, / My prince — in a fortress, up high, / Will I betray him? — I don’t know! / But my life on this earth i...»