Not for safe-keeping for awhile, –
For the altar, not donation, –
For the fire, the fire, its oblation
Rapt Israel brought in times gone by!
And pleasing to Jehovah’s nostrils
Was smoke from sacrificial fires,
Because a consecrated offering
In truth, can not be taken back…
You, pastors of the flocks of Christ,
Merchants with a priestly ranking!
What is your gift? A simple price:
Deposit and withdrawal banking!
And Israel, your ancient torch
Shall shine above the world again,
The cross atop the church is stained
And God is clearly not within!
Не на храненье до поры, —
На жертвенник, а не в копилку, —
В огонь, в огонь Израиль пылкий
Издревле нес свои дары!
И дымный жертвенный пожар
Ноздрям Господним был приятен,
Затем, что посвященный дар
Поистине был безвозвратен...
Вы, пастыри Христовых стад,
Купцы с апостольской осанкой!
Что ваша жертва? Только вклад:
Внесли и вынули из банка!
И оттого твой древний свет
Над миром всходит вновь, Израиль,
Что крест над церковью истаял
И в этой церкви Бога нет!
«Don’t let your worldly soul get lazy! / Lest it sit twiddling its thumbs / Your soul must work like it's a navvy / Day after day, night after night! / / Make so it go from door to door, / Drag it from one top onto another / Along a path - all ruts and holes, / Over a pass with s...»
«Came a rush of whistling, / birds descended from the sky. / Like rustling leaves / they would not fly. And like a giant wing above me / I watched the swan-storm grow. / The cloud was some enormous bird / that trailed twilight on the place below. Mysterious feathery shadows / drifting...»
«The echoing gull planes over empty water. / I am futurity's silent ebb, / I am silentium's future flow. / The reeds are unsteady, unsteady. / The small boats fly. / The fishermen cry.»
«The streams of time / on stone dreams, / the rush of streams / on time's stones. / Rustling sedge / at the lake's edge — / reverent hush, / reverberant rush.»