A Fable
You know the herb they use for doses;
it grows at the edge of filthy places.
This is a tale of ancient princes:
Russia fought the Mongols here
in the lighter days of a younger year.
With a rough sack of sour complaints
the New Year took the old one's place,
with all his horde of helpmates hustling
after joking, jostling, whistling
lewdly into their country pipes
and puffing out their piggy cheeks.
But that same land no longer laughs
since the swan-song sounded overhead,
and the bones, the bones — «Rue,» they madly cry
beneath their shroud of spring-green rye.
And the bones, they wail forevermore:
«We will always remember war.»
Басня
Знай, есть трава, нужна для мазей.
Она растет по граням грязей.
То есть рассказ о старых князях:
Когда груз лет был меньше стар,
Здесь билась Русь и сто татар.
С вязанкой жалоб и невзгод
Пришел на смену новый год.
Его помощники в свирели
Про дни весенние свистели
И щеки толстые надули,
И стали круглы, точно дули.
Но та земля забыла смех,
Лишь в день чумной здесь лебедь несся,
И кости бешено кричали: «Бех», —
Одеты зеленью из проса,
И кости звонко выли: «Да!
Мы будем помнить бой всегда».
«I was not here for hundreds years, / But nothing changed for ages here… / In the same way the divine lyre / Pours bliss from the eternal crests. Same are the waters and stars’ throngs, / And endless bleakness of skies’ domes, / And flying seeds in airy flows, / And mothers sing th...»
«When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient, / Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread. / What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation, / When compared with the gentle piper's tread? And she came in, threw out the mantle's edges, / Declined to me with a sincere heed. / I say to he...»
«Muse went away by the road, / The autumnal, narrow, steep, / And her swarthy feet were slopped, / With large drops of dew in her slip. I begged her, with hope and fear, / To stay till the winter’s white lace, / She answered, “There is a grave here, / How can you still breathe in su...»
«Something of heavens ever burns in it, / I like to watch its wondrous facets' growth. / It speaks with me in fate's non-seldom fits, / When others fear to approach close. When the last of friends had looked away / From me in grave, it lay to me in silence, / And sang as sing a thunderstor...»