Through the consoling April sun
the breeze, so very unconsoling,
a sandy whirlwind on the road —
shutting up the chattering starling.
Up above the northern latitudes,
dark grey clouds are bulking high.
Bowler hats get pulled down tight —
but these two dandies let theirs fly.
And under the noise of the rumbling hail,
the proud and wicked heart revives:
«That's our very own lightning-crack,
the wingbeat as our spring arrives!»
Сквозь уютное солнце апреля —
Неуютный такой холодок.
И — смерчом по дорожке песок,
И — смолкает скворец-пустомеля.
Там над северным краем земли
Черно-серая вздутая туча.
Котелки поплотней нахлобуча,
Попроворней два франта пошли.
И под шум градобойного гула —
В сердце гордом, веселом и злом:
«Это молнии нашей излом,
Это наша весна допорхнула!»
«A dish-like lake, serene and spacious, / Converging stormclouds overhead / And there, beyond, the alpine glaciers, / Lustrous and stark, sublime and dread. The lighting alters and the woods / Go through a constant change of colour, / Now burning, now beneath a hood / Of heart-oppressing...»
«To Ilya Ehrenburg Horses can swim but they don't venture far — / That is a fact, and here is the story: In times of peace, just after the war, / There was a ship by the name of Gloria. She was out at sea one fateful day, / Across the ocean ploughing her way. On the surging waves she toss...»
«There were many old women and only a few old men... / Perhaps it was life, just life, or perhaps something else again / But it bent the old women, and the old men it broke: / Some died of heart-attacks, others of strokes. / The old women went through their closets and chests, / And laid o...»
«Physicists are held in reverence, / Lyricists — let's be truthful — / in the shade. / This is not an ordinary preference, / It's a law, and is as such obeyed. All it means is that poetic reverie / Sidetracks us from pathwa...»