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.
«O'er the earth a storm is prowling, / Bringing whirling, blinding snow. / Like a beast I hear it howling, / Like an infant wailing low. / Now the thatch it rustles, playing / On our roof; now at our pane / Raps like someone homeward straying / And behighted in the plain. Old our hut i...»
«In the evening, all uphill, / My path stretched out ahead. / A day ago and loving still, / He begged me: “Don’t forget.” / Now, only winds gust on my way / And shepherd’s voices ring, / And agitated cedars sway / Beside the sparkling spring.»
«Cast-iron railings, / a bed of pine. / And jealousy? / So sweet it’s gone. With sobs and prayers / my bed was made. / Walk at will now, / God at your side! Your ears not stung / by ranting words. / No candle-burning / until the dawn. We won our peace: / clear days and dear. ...»
«A cast-iron fence, / A bed of pine, / How sweet that I no longer / Need to be jealous. A bed’s made for me / With sobbing and prayer; / Now go wherever on earth / You wish, God bless you! Now your ears won’t burn / With frenzied speech, / Now a candle won’t flicker / Till t...»