Don’t seduce me into captivity,
Don’t entice me with hearth and home,
Don’t immure me living and breathing
Inside four walls.
There’s no chamber for which a poet
Would exchange her homelessness, –
That’s why the cuckoo cuckoos
That she hasn’t got a nest.
Ты уютом меня не приваживай,
Не заманивай в душный плен,
Не замуровывай заживо
Меж четырех стен.
Нет палаты такой, на какую
Променял бы бездомность поэт, —
Оттого-то кукушка кукует,
Что гнезда у нее нет.
«I'll leave the mortal world behind, / Take wing in an flight fantastical, / With singing, my eternal soul / Will rise up swan-like in the air. Possessing two immortal traits, / In Purgatory I won't not linger, / But rising over jealousy / I'll leave behind me kingdoms' shine. 'Tis so! ...»
«I built myself a monument, eternal and miraculous, / It's higher than the Pyramids, than metal it is harder; / Swift winds and thunder cannot knock it down / The flight of time cannot demolish it. Thus I won't really die! The part of me that's largest / Will baffle death, and will escape de...»
«How blessed's the good-natured poet, / With little bile and much emotion: / All lovers of the gentle arts / Send him sincerest greetings; The admiration of the crowd / Sounds in his ear like rippling waves; / He is a stranger to self-doubt- / That torture of creative souls; Lover of co...»
«Here's a vestibule. On holidays / Overcome by slavish fear, / The whole population, in a state of awe, / Rushes to the sacred doors. / Having left their names and ranks. / All these visitors return then to their homes / They are all so deeply satisfied / You might think this was their...»