Drowsily an aged pine
rustles in her sleep.
Leaning on her coarse-grained trunk
Here I stand and speak.
«little pine-tree, just my age,
Give me of your strength!
Not the usual nine months,
forty years I carried,
forty years I had been bearing,
forty years I had been begging,
begged my heart out, got by pleading,
brought to term
my soul.»
Дремлет старая сосна
И шумит со сна.
Я, к шершавому стволу
Прислонясь, стою.
— Сосенка-ровесница,
Передай мне силу!
Я не девять месяцев, —
Сорок лет носила,
Сорок лет вынашивала,
Сорок лет выпрашивала,
Вымолила, выпросила,
Выносила
Душу.
«You took me – / I was sullen, without affection, / with only black thoughts / and convict ravings / and a widow’s unhealed anguish / and a past love that wasn’t past / You took me as a wife – / not for joy’s sake, / not of your own accord / but out of love.»
«Moscow, who are you? / Enchantress or enchanted? / Forger of freedom / or fettered lady? / What thought furrows your brow / as you plot your worldwide plot? / Are you a shining window / into another age? / O Moscow, are you femme fatale / or fetter-fated, / fated or fêted? / D...»
«Moscow, who are you? / Are you charming or charmed? / Are you forging freedom / Or chained? / What thought knits your brow? / With the world of conspire. / Perhaps you’re a window, giving light / Into another time, / Or an expert cat you’re: / Do sciences order to crucify, / ...»
«Once again, once again / I’m a star for / you. / Woe to the sailor who has taken / The wrong angle of the ship / On a star: / He will be shattered on the rocks, / On the underwater sandbanks. / Woe to you also who have taken / The heart’s wrong angle on me. / You will be shat...»