When the blue shimmer of the damsel-fly
shines through the smoke of villages,
A Thing appears, some new conception,
and shipwrecks intellect on Number's shore.
«Children, children!» the priest exclaimed,
when he heard the Athenian envoy speak.
About the austere neck of Number
mind and matter hang like a cloak.
When mortal minds tire pondering
some equation — wine-dark, foam-born —
their goal, remember, is to tower
until they touch the sky.
Replace the stake, the block, the cross!
Think of Number as an iron device.
Even the whirlwind slackens,
confronting Number face to face.
I write these lines in ink: Believe me,
the day is near that glorifies us all!
And the rough beast slouches in silence,
a pair of virgin ciphers in his paw!
But when he hears the tender tumult
of these voices and these days,
he will fall down as if struck
upon the rocks, upon the rocks.
Когда мерцает в дыме сёл
Сверкнувший синим коромысел,
Проходит Та, как новый вымысел,
И бросит ум на берег чисел.
Воскликнул жрец: «О, дети, дети!» –
На речь афинского посла.
И ум, и мир, как плащ, одеты
На плечах строгого числа.
И если смертный морщит лоб
Над винно-пенным уравнением,
Узнайте: делает он, чтоб
Стать роста на небо растением.
Прочь застенок! Глаз не хмуря,
Огляните чисел лом.
Ведь уже трепещет буря,
Полупоймана числом.
Напишу в чернилах: верь!
Близок день, что всех возвысил!
И грядет бесшумно зверь
С парой белых нежных чисел!
Но, услышав нежный гомон
Этих уст и этих дней,
Он падёт, как будто сломан,
На утесы меж камней.
«I’m not of those who left their country / For wolves to tear it limb from limb. / Their flattery does not touch me. / I will not give my songs to them. / / Yet I can take the exile’s part, / I pity all among the dead. / Wanderer, your path is dark, / Wormwood is the stranger’s...»
«Blows the swan wind, / The blue sky’s smeared / With blood; the anniversary / Of your love’s first days draws near. / / You have destroyed / My sorcery; like water the years / Have drifted by. Why / Aren’t you old, but as you were? / / Your tender voice even more ringing....»
«To fall ill as one should, deliriously / Hot, meet everyone again, / To stroll broad avenues in the seashore garden / Full of the wind and the sun. / / Even the dead, today, have agreed to come, / And the exiles, into my house. / Lead the child to me by the hand. / Long I have misse...»
«Behind the lake the moon’s not stirred / And seems to be a window through / Into a silent, well-lit house, / Where something unpleasant has occurred. / / Has the master been brought home dead, / The mistress run off with a lover, / Or has a little girl gone missing, / And her shoe...»