I shall not lie to find a lurid rhyme,
Honoured master, no harsh words from you:
Since the cot your choice has not been mine,
I can only do what I can do.
How heartily I thank relentless Fate
For the prickly Muse that I’ve been given:
The path we walk is ours, though it be strait,
She and I aren’t fellow-travelling women.
Ради рифмы резвой не солгу,
Уж не обессудь, маститый мастер, —
Мы от колыбели разной масти:
Я умею только то, что я могу.
Строгой благодарна я судьбе,
Что дала мне Музу-недотрогу:
Узкой, но своей идем дорогой.
Обе не попутчицы тебе.
«It's thirteen now! Quite recently / We welcomed greeting it with love. / At thirteen, wilfully and boldly / It showed its nature well enough. / / Again, your day of birth is coming... / You vicious naughty boy! For once / Do not expect either good wishes / Or great festivities from ...»
«The artist's work delineates / Dead faint of lilac shrub for us / He put, like crusts, upon the canvass / Reverberating sounds of paints / / He knows what oil is worth indeed: / Its summer, parched and under strain, / Warmed up with lilac tint of brain / Extended to the stuffy heat....»
«Insomnia. Homer. The sails — stretched out. / I’ve read the catalogue of ships halfway: / This lengthy brood, this train of cranes / That soared from Hellas up into the clouds. A wedge of cranes toward a foreign land — / The heads of kings sprayed by the godly foam — / What’s Tr...»
«Insomnia. Homer. The rows of stretched sails. / I’ve read the catalogue of ships just to the middle: / That endless caravan, that lengthy stream of cranes, / Which long ago rose up above the land of Hellas. It’s like a wedge of cranes towards the distant shores — / The foreheads of th...»