To E. K. Gertsyk
When the love of flesh fades,
So goes the desire to create.
Your fingers don’t long to handle clay
Or chisel shadows into marble.
Your song halts in mid-word,
The brush freezes in mid-stroke —
Surprise…how little they matter.
Farewell, farewell to you, sublime lust!
The spirit’s last lingering joy.
Е. К. Герцык
Кто разлюбляет плоть, хладеет к воплощенью:
Почти не тянется за глиною рука.
Уже не вылепишь ни льва, ни голубка,
Не станет мрамором, что наплывает тенью.
На полуслове — песнь, на полувзмахе — кисть
Вдруг остановишь ты, затем что их — не надо...
Прощай, прощай и ты, прекрасная корысть,
Ты, духа предпоследняя услада!
«Blue homeland of Firdausi, / You’ll keep the memory warm / Of that kind fellow from Russia / Whose gaze had a pensive charm, / Blue homeland of Firdausi. I know you’re beautiful, Persia. / Like lanterns your roses shine, / Their supple freshness murmurs / To me of that far land of...»
«To be a poet — if from the truth / Of life one is not to depart — / Means flailing your soft skin to soothe / With your own blood another’s heart. To be a poet — of open fields / Go sing, their freedom mastering. / A nightingale no anguish feels, / Ever the same old song he sing...»
«My love’s hands, just like a pair of swans, / In my golden head of hair are plunging. / Everybody who to earth belongs / Sings of love, then sings again — of loving. I too sang of love long, long ago, / Now again with that same theme I’m dealing. / For that reason deeply breathe and...»
«“Tell me why the moon shines palely / On the city wall and orchards? / It’s as though the mist were veiling / Russian fields laid bare by autumn” — To the nightly silent cypress, / Lala dear, I put this question. / But the trees made no reply to me, / Raising their proud crowns ...»