I see them: Crab, Ram, Bull,
and all the world is only shell
whose pearl and opalescence
is my impotence.
A knock, a chirr, container of whistle and rustle,
and I realize then that waves and thought are kin.
Here, there, in milky ways, women rise
through darkness drunk on drowsy prose.
On such a night, no grave is grim...
and evening women, evening wine
become a single diadem
whose baby boy I am.
Мне видны — Рак, Овен,
И мир лишь раковина,
В которой жемчужиной
То, чем недужен я.
В шорохов свисте шествует стук вроде «Ч».
И тогда мне казались волны и думы — родичи.
Млечными путями здесь и там возникают женщины.
Милой обыденщиной
Напоена мгла.
В эту ночь любить и могила могла…
И вечернее вино
И вечерние женщины
Сплетаются в единый венок,
Которого брат меньший я.
«For all, I thank Thee, I, the meek remitter: / For passion's secret torments without end, / The kiss of venom, and the tears too bitter, / The vengeful enemy, the slanderous friend, / The spirit's ardor on the desert squandered, / For every lash of life's deceiving thong; / I thank Thee ...»
«Silent I sit by the prison's high window, / Where through the bars the blue heavens are breaking. / Flecks in the azure, the free birds are playing; / Watching them fly there, my shamed heart is aching. But on my sinful lips never a prayer, / Never a song in the praise of my charmer; / Al...»
«Like a white stone deep in a draw-well lying, / As hard and clear, a memory lies in me. / I cannot strive nor have I heart for striving: / It is such pain and yet such ecstasy. It seems to me that someone looking closely / Into my eyes would see it, patent, pale. / And, seeing, would grow...»
«From my poor sins I am set free. / In lilac dusk the taper smolders; / The dark stole's rigid drapery / Conceals a massive head and shoulders. "Talitha kumi": Is it He / Once more? How fast the heart is beating . . . / A touch: a hand moves absently / The customary cross repeating.»