Children of the city, withered faded flowers,
I love you for the completion that a dream empowers.
If only this forehead would smooth out from strain,
If only these eyes were not so sad and drained,
If only these bodies were not starved and thin,
How much joyful enmity would have surged within!
If these feet were only not all rickets-bent,
If beneath them only grass and greenery’s scent!
Children of the city, withered faded blooms,
Still a seed of beauty hides within your gloom.
Mid the clang of iron, the deafening of stone,
You are all the brighter, you are hope alone!
Городские дети, чахлые цветы,
Я люблю вас сладким домыслом мечты.
Если б этот лобик распрямил виски!
Если б в этих глазках не было тоски!
Если б эти тельца не были худы,
Сколько б в них кипело радостной вражды!
Если б эти ноги не были кривы!
Если б этим детям под ноги травы!
Городские дети, чахлые цветы!
Все же в вас таится семя красоты.
В грохоте железа, в глухоте камней
Вы одна надежда, вы всего ясней!
«Fine is the wine that is in love with us, / The goodly bread we wait for from the oven, / And woman whom we have possessed, at last, / After we've suffered under yoke her own. But what to do if a red sunset freezes / Above a sky that's drowning in cold, / Where there is silence and uneart...»
«How pleased we are by the entrancing wine / And by the bread that’s waiting in the oven, / And by the woman who can pacify / Our agonies in the delights of loving. But with the sunset’s color of a rose / Above the cool horizon of the sky — / What do we do with that divine repos...»
«Fine is the wine that loves us, / and the bread baked for our sake, / and the woman who lies and loves us / when she’s finished her tweaking games. But sunset clouds, rose / in a sky turned cold, / calm like some other earth? / immortal poems? All inedible, non-potable, un-kissable. ...»
«It's priceless — wine, that falls in love with us, / And bread, that sits for us in oven, — priceless treasure, / And priceless is a woman that, at last, / After all torments, we possess for pleasure. But what to do with clear light of dawn, / When sky's, like heaven, peaceful, deep an...»