My talent is pitiful, my voice not loud,
but I am living; somewhere in the world
someone looks kindly on my life; far off
a distant fellow-man will read my words
and find my being; and, who knows, my soul
will raise an echo in his soul, and I
who found a friend in my own time,
will find a reader in posterity.
Мой дар убог и голос мой не громок,
Но я живу, и на земли моё
Кому-нибудь любезно бытиё:
Его найдёт далёкий мой потомок
В моих стихах: как знать? душа моя
Окажется с душой его в сношеньи,
И как нашёл я друга в поколеньи,
Читателя найду в потомстве я.
«Amid the morning hazes, wavering of pace, / I journeyed to a secret, wonder-laden shore; / The daybreak strove to quench the straggling starry trace; / Dreams still were on the wing, and held in their embrace, / My spirit sought unfathomed godheads to adore. Upon a lonely journey in a chill...»
«The court of my empress is lofty of height, / With seven golden pillars around. / The crown of my empress is sevenfold bedight, / With jewels unnumbered 'tis bound. And in the green garden, my empress' own, / The roses and lilies bloom fair; / In the waves of a silvery streamlet is thrown...»
«Sunset dreams on fir-tre cones, / Green — the hedge, and brown — the field; / Mossy rifts in weathered stones / Meekly vernal waters yield. Oh, look up the wooded steep — / God has touched it with his palm; / Piously wild berries weep, / Listening to the grassy psa...»
«A Psalter of Tsar' Aleksii, / Its pages — scarves, funeral groats, / Restless Russia / Wanders, wheezing, through decrees. The peasant jacket is torn, / The disgraced headscarf flaps . / Now a bench by' the door would be good, / And tales about Constantinople, Honey buns on the tabl...»