No white birches or wild ashes —
Used to warm the smoky huts.
Here are jewels- lustrous, precious
Pearls and rubies in fine cuts.
Viewing the Armory’s possessions
All of a sudden, from afar
My eyes caught my own reflection
In the mirror of the czar.
I stood there in awed silence,
Thinking of the ages passed —
Mirrored clearly, unbiased
In czar Peter’s looking glass —
It had seen the swords and spears,
Silver, lavishly ornate,
Now it sees my mundane gear
And my contemplative state...
Walking back that quiet evening
Stone steps echoing below,
I looked up: the sky was gleaming
Just like centuries ago.
And my mind was calm and clear
Under its eternal arch;
Focused not on Peter’s mirror —
But on history at large.
On its rough uneven routes,
On its trials that will judge
With no pity and no doubt
Who to scaffold or to scourge.
Our memory should serve us —
Eras, epochs may elapse —
Nothing will escape the surface
Of the guileless looking glass!
Не берёзы, не рябины
и не чёрная изба —
Всё топазы, всё рубины,
всё узорная резьба.
В размышленья погружённый
средь музейного добра,
Вдруг я замер,
отражённый
в личном зеркале Петра.
Это вправду поражало:
сколько лет ни утекло,
Всё исправно отражало
беспристрастное стекло —
Серебро щитов и сабель,
и чугунное литьё,
И моей рубахи штапель,
и обличие моё...
Шёл я улицей ночною,
раздавался гул шагов,
И мерцало надо мною
небо тысячи веков,
И под этим вечным кровом
думал я, спеша домой,
Не о зеркале Петровом -
об истории самой,
О путях её негладких,
о суде её крутом,
Без опаски,
без оглядки
перед плахой и кнутом.
Это помнить не мешает,
сколько б лет ни утекло, —
Всё исправно отражает
неподкупное стекло!..
«Come, don't I know that, stumbling against shadows, / Darkness could never have arrived at light? / Do I rate happy hundreds over millions / Of happy men? Am I a monster quite? Isn't the Five-Year-Plan a yardstick for me, / Its rise and fall my own? But I don't quiz / In asking: What shal...»
«The cubbyhole I lie in is a box / Of candied orange-peel. / Soiled by hotel rooms till I reach the morgue — / That's not for me, I feel. Out of pure superstition I have come / And settled here once more. / The wallpaper is brown as any oak, / And there's a singing door. I kept one ha...»
«A flock of keys I had feeding out of my hand, / To clapping of wings and croaking and feathery fight; / On tiptoe I stood and stretched out my arm, and the sleeve / Rolled up, so I felt at my elbow the nudging of night. And the dark. And a pond in the dark, and the lapping of waves. / And t...»
«Romantic youngsters, drunk with dreams of triumph, / They've pedalled off to continents unknown, / Two angels on two bicycles fast-flying — / My love and youth, and left me all alone. And now trying to retrace their route / With here a punctured tire and there a fall.... / But steady! H...»