The night is full of constellations.
What advent, what intelligence
of freedom or restraint
shines in your wide pages, book
above me, what fate must I make out
in the wide midnight sky?
Ночь, полная созвездий.
Какой судьбы, каких известий
Ты широко сияешь, книга?
Свободы или ига?
Какой прочесть мне должно жребий
На полночью широком небе?
«I shall not lie to find a lurid rhyme, / Honoured master, no harsh words from you: / Since the cot your choice has not been mine, / I can only do what I can do. / / How heartily I thank relentless Fate / For the prickly Muse that I’ve been given: / The path we walk is ours, though i...»
«Drowsily an aged pine / rustles in her sleep. / Leaning on her coarse-grained trunk / Here I stand and speak. / "little pine-tree, just my age, / Give me of your strength! / Not the usual nine months, / forty years I carried, / forty years I had been bearing, / forty years I had be...»
«Everything became conjoined – the very air / Around you to your very stars, the belt you wear, / Each of those stubborn springy steps of yours / And every line of your awkward verse. You – who were never bailed out / Are free to burn and free to squander. / Imagine this: we’ve never...»
«Each of your verses is a boil of poison / Like a life that has been burned by sin. / I breathe your verses although I should not, / It’s forbidden to breathe them in. You are a mad poor little boy / Who brought a farewell noise of bells / From some white funeral to spoil / The banquet...»