What an amazing time it was!
Me, in my twentieth year.
The fountain gushed up
like an arc of diamonds.
Poplar fluff tumbled down,
and kids were up from the crack of dawn
stamping around
the fountain in the lane,
and the world was immenser,
and the sky was deep-bluer,
and — released from dovecotes —
doves plunged into the sky…
And life was even lighter
than the poplar fluff —
and oh so terrifying and fun,
the way it took our breath away!
Прекрасная пора была!
Мне шел двадцатый год.
Алмазною параболой
взвивался водомет.
Пушок валился с тополя,
и с самого утра
вокруг фонтана топала
в аллее детвора,
и мир был необъятнее,
и небо голубей,
и в небо голубятники
пускали голубей...
И жизнь не больше весила,
чем тополевый пух, —
и страшно так и весело
захватывало дух!
«The music clamoured in the garden / With such inexpressible sorrow. / Freshly and sharply with the scent of sea / Smelled the oysters on ice. He said to me: "I am a loyal friend!" / And touched my dress. / So unlike an embrace / Is the touch of these hands. Cats or birds are petted tha...»
«All of us are are revellers here, whores, / How mirthless it is for us to be together! / On the walls, flowers and birds / languish in clouds. You are smoking a black pipe, / So strange are the wisps over it. / I put on a tight dress, / To look even slimmer. Forever forgotten windows: ...»
«A boy said to me: "How painful it is!" / And it’s a great pity with him. / Just a short while ago he was content, / Having only heard about sorrow. And now he knows all of it, no less / Than you, wise and old, do. / Dimmed and, it seems, already became / So the pupils of blinding eyes...»
«Dying, I pine over immortality. / Low is the cloud of dusty mist. / Least let it be the naked red devils, / Least let it be a vat of rank tar. Crawl on to me, beguile, / Ye threats from crumbling books. / Only leave me my memory, / Only the memory at the last moment. So that in the har...»