Blessed be nights; their solitude evokes
Quiet talks to you through wisps of smoke.
Many stars look down, big and small,
And a lonely mouse rustles by the wall.
In my chest, I touch a tender bone
Motherland, it's yours and yours alone.
In your air I'm still immersed,
I exhale it in my pining verse.
Scarlet palms on Easter holy night
Guarded many candles' sacred light.
And the arches of my bare soles
Are still longing for your poignant soil.
My whole body for your image aches
And my soul soars over Neva's waves.
I lie down and smother my cigar,
And your spring engulfs me from afar:
My home porch, that oak tree with its stake,
Sandy alleys leveled by the rake.
Ночь дана, чтоб думать и курить
и сквозь дым с тобою говорить.
Хорошо... Пошуркивает мышь,
много звезд в окне и много крыш.
Кость в груди нащупываю я:
родина, вот эта кость — твоя.
Воздух твой, вошедший в грудь мою,
я тебе стихами отдаю.
Синей ночью рдяная ладонь
охраняла вербный твой огонь.
И тоскуют впадины ступней
по земле пронзительной твоей.
Так все тело — только образ твой,
и душа, как небо над Невой.
Покурю и лягу, и засну,
и твою почувствую весну:
угол дома, памятный дубок,
граблями расчесанный песок.
«...And no-one came to meet me / Carrying a lantern. / The house quiet: my entry / By moonlight uncertain. Under the green lamp, / His smile was lifeless, / Whispering: "Cinderella, / How strange your voice..." Flames of the fire dying: / Wearily, cricket chirping. / Ah! Someone’s...»
«My imagination, obediently, / Conceives grey eyes. / In Tver, in my solitude, / It’s you I bitterly remember. Happily captive in another’s arms, / On the left bank of the Neva, / My famed contemporary, / You have all that you desired; You who told me: Enough, / Go now, quench you...»
«We shall not sip from the same glass, / No water for us, or sweet wine; / We’ll not embrace at morning, / Not gaze from the same sill at night; / You breathe the sun, I the moon, / Yet the one love keeps us alive. Always with me, tender, true friend, / And your smiling friend’s with...»
«Always so many pleas from a lover! / None when they fall out of love. / I’m so glad it plunges, the river, / Beneath colourless ice above. And I’m to stand — God help me! — / On the surface, fissured, gleaming, / With my letters, for posterity / To judge, in your safe keeping, ...»