A bird who wants to go higher
flies into the blue.
A lady who wants to go higher
wears a high-heeled shoe.
When I don't have any shoes
I go to the market and buy some.
Someone who's missing a nose
can go get a false one.
When a nation discovers it has no soul,
it goes to the neighbors
and buys one! Sold!
...and unsouled!
Птица, стремясь ввысь,
Летит к небу,
Панна, стремясь ввысь,
Носит высокие каблуки.
Когда у меня нет обуви,
Я иду на рынок и покупаю её.
Когда у кого-нибудь нет носу,
Он покупает воску.
Когда у народа нет души,
Он идет к соседнему
И за плату приобретает её —
Он, лишенный души!..
«Don't call. Without any summons / I'll reach the shrine. / And droop my head in even silence / To your feet fine. I will your orders shyly listen / And will remain / To catch our meetings, short and instant, / And wish again. I fell before your passions' power, / Before its wave, / ...»
«She came to me from the vast distance — / The child of night and other times. / Her kin were lost in space and seasons, / Our skies didn’t brighten for her eyes. But under snow of night tempests, / Over Neva, so cold and might, / She met a sphinx, as her friend prettiest, / With ea...»
«So melodiously and airily, / The princess sang about spring, / That I told her, “Oh, princess-fairy, / Only for me you’ll cry and sing.” On shoulders mine lay her arms, flashing. / I heard the gentle: “No, good-bye. / Take your sharp sword. Arm self for slashing. / I’ll save ...»
«Spring breaks in rivers the ice-floes, / And I don’t pity my sweet dead: / Having subdued my heights and roads, / Forgot I winter narrow lows, / And see the distance, in blue set. What might be pitied in a fire, / Why to be sorry by a cross, / When I am waiting for a mire / Or for a...»