«O.M. And the town is frozen solid, leaden with ice. / Trees, walls, snow, seem to be under glass. / Cautiously I tread on crystals. / The painted sleighs can’t get a grip. / And over the statue of Peter-in-Voronezh / Are crows, and populars, and a pale-green dome / Washed-out and mudd...»
«I shall come into your dream / As a black ewe, approach the throne / On withered and infirm / Legs, bleating: "Padishah, Have you dined well? You who hold / The world like a bead, beloved / of Allah, was my little son / To your taste, was he fat enough"»
«Down and away flew the melting snow; / cheeks burned red and glistened. / I had not thought the moon was so small / or the clouds so smokily distant. Asking for nothing, I’ll go away, / for my number is up, for ever. / I had not thought the moon was so fair / or so feaful up in heaven...»
«This, not graveyard roses, is my gift; / And I won’t burn sticks of incense: / You died as unflinchingly as you lived, / With magnificent defiance. / Drank wine, and joked — were still the wittiest, / Choked on the stifling air. / You yourself let in the terrible guest And stayed al...»