To Khodasevich
A childhood memory: those pears,
wrinkled, little, tight,
and hidden inside
tart flesh that puckered the mouth:
exactly so my delight
in the bitter shards of your verse.
С детства помню: груши есть такие —
сморщенные, мелкие, тугие,
и такая терпкость скрыта в них,
что едва укусишь, — сводит челюсть:
так вот для меня и эта прелесть
злых, оскомистых стихов твоих.
«Oh my dear maple, frozen stiff and bare, / Why do you stand bending in the blizzard there? / / Have you seen a vision? Have you heard a babble? / Just like you are out for an idle ramble. / / Like a tipsy warden, walking on the roadside, / You have stuck in snowdrift, hit by burnin...»
«There’s still the twilight of the night. / The world’s so young in its proceeding, / That there are countless stars outside / And each one, like the day, is bright / And if the Earth could so decide, / She’d sleep through Easter in delight, / Hearing the Psalter reading. There’s...»
«Deep in Siberia's mines, let naught / Subdue your proud and patient spirit. / Your crushing toil and lofty thought / Shall not be wasted — do not fear it. Misfortune's sister, hope sublime, / From sombre dungeon pain will banish; / Joy will awake and sorrow vanish... / 'Twill come, th...»
«Fire and rope, bullet and axe — / These faithful servants at our backs. / In every drop there slept a flood, / From every stone a mountain lloomed. / And in each trampled twig / Black-handed forests sighed and moaned. Falsehood gorged itself from our plates, / Bells sounded only ...»