Vladislav Khodasevich
- Ballad of the Heavy Lyre, by Peter Daniels
(I sit where the light is above me...) - Orpheus, by Athena
(I sit in my room round and tiny...) - Orpheus, by Vladimir Nabokov
(Brightly lit from above I am sitting...)
«Tell me, / My beloved sickle, / Why you are now as black / As my hair? Is it because you’ve been sprinkled / With the tears of a maiden / Grieving for the loss / Of her dearest one? In the wide steppes / Of the quiet-flowing Don / The green grass / Has long ago been mown; The...»
«Willow tree, why do you bend your branches / Down to the water / And with leaves a-tremble / Like thirsty mouths / Try to catch the running stream? Useless for every leaf to strain / And flutter above the stream, / The waters rush and plash along their way, / Gaily sparkling in the su...»
«For a long time I stood without moving / Peering at the distant stars, – / Between those stars and me / Unbidden, there grew a bond. I thought... but what, I recall not; / I heard a mysterious choir, / The stars, they silently trembled, / I’ve loved them from that moment on...»
«Oh, if it’s true that in the night / When living men are sleeping, / And from the sky the pale moonlight / Slides over the gravestones, / Oh, if it’s only true that at that time / The silent graves open, / I call the shade of Leila and wait for her: / To me, my dear, come here to m...»