Vladimir Mayakovsky
Kindness to horses

Hoofs plod
seeming to sing,
Grab.
Rib.
Grub.
Rob.
Ice-shod,
wind a-swing,
the street skidded.
On the roadway a cob
toppled,
and immediately,
loafer after loafer,
sweeping the Kuznetsky
with trousers bell-bottomous,
came mobbing.
Laughter rang over and over,
“Horse flopped!
Boo, hippopotamus!”
Th Kuznetsky guffawed.
Only I
didn’t mix my voice in the bestiality.
I came up, glimpsed in the horse’s eye:
the street, up-turned,
swam in all its reality.
I came up and saw
huge drop after drop
roll down the muzzle,
hide in the growth...
And an animal anguish
I couldn’t stop
spilled out of me, rippling,
and flooded us both.
“Now, don’t, please, horsie!
You know what remorse is?
They’re human,
but why do you suppose you’re worse?
Pet,
we’re all of us a little bit horses,
each of us in his own way’s a horse.”
Perhaps she didn’t need a nurse, old naggie,
perhaps even laughed at my words
— too trite! —
but the horse made an effort,
heaved,
up-dragging,
neighed, and went on,
all right.
Tail a-swishing,
great big baby,
she came light-hearted,
back to her stall,
and she felt a colt — just two years, maybe, —
and life worth living
despite it all.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg