Attractive smiles of hers were meant
The Poet’s love to tantalize,
It wasn’t love that's backward sent
By his appriciating eyes:
It was a lovely gracious dream,
Light dream of His imagination.
It wasn't love: Apollo's beam
Served for the poet's inspiration.
А. С. Пушкину
Она улыбкою своей
Поэта в жертвы пригласила,
Но не любовь ответом ей,
Взор ясный думой осенила.
Нет, это был сей лёгкий сон,
Сей тонкий сон воображенья,
Что посылает Аполлон
Не для любви, для вдохновенья.
«My poems, written early, when I doubted / that I could ever play the poet’s part, / erupting, as though water from the fountain / or sparks from a petard, / and rushing as though little demons, senseless, / into the sanctuary, where incense spreads, / my poems about death and adolescen...»
«You, walking past me and racing / After charms that you’ll hardly attain, — / If you knew how much fire is wasted, / How much life is wasted in vain! And what flames, so courageously rash, / An occasional shade can evoke, / And how my heart was burnt into ash / By this useless gunpo...»
«You walk, somewhat like myself, / Hunched, and not looking up. / I used to lower my eyes as well! / Stop here, passerby, stop! Having gathered your flowers in a / Bouquet, read the stone by the gate — / It will say I was named Marina, / And I lived to the following date. It’s a gra...»
«Into this chasm, many fell, / It’s gaping wide! / My time will come and I, as well, / Will go one night. And all that struggled, shone, rejoiced / Will be ensnared — / My emerald eyes, my gentle voice, / My golden hair. Your daily bread will come. You’ll live / Without a pause....»