From this exhausting weakness
Nowhere to go! Nowhere to go!
Which flows around my heart
Like water! Like water!
Was it really written — (and by whom?) —
In the heavens,
That two demons, hope and fear,
Should eat into my soul?
I won't be saved, I have been struggling
For so long! For so long!
I'm sure to fall, let me reach the bottom,
But where's the bottom?
…Нет! из слабости истощающей
Никуда! Никуда!
Сердце мое обтекающей
Как вода! Как вода!
Ужель написано – и кем оно?
В небесах,
Чтоб въедались в душу два демона,
Надежда и Страх?
Не спасусь, я борюсь,
Так давно! Так давно!
Все равно утону, уж скорей бы ко дну…
Но где дно?..
«I St. Isaac’s Cathedral is clothed in / The robes of cast silver again. / The horse of Peter stands frozen, / Impatient, fierce and intent. The harsh stifling wind will not cease, / Sweeping chimneys and hovering... / The new capital does not please / The sovereign. II The heart be...»
«Breathing is forbidden, heaven teems / with worms — and not a star to testify — / but God sees, there is music overhead, / the station shivers, the Aonides are singing, / once again, the violins — their air fused — merging / with explosions of the locomotives’ whistles. An enorm...»
«Don't fall, my little star, keep shining, / Keep dropping chilly beams of light. / There is no living heart abiding / Up there beyond the grave-yard site. / / And from you beam you bring us summer / And fill the fields with rye and hay / And with a thrilling wistful clamour / Of cra...»
«Upon the cobbles / of my foot-clobbered soul, / the steps of loonies / twine their grinding rhymes. / Where the towns / are hung / and in the nooses of clouds / the crooked necks of towers / are wrung, / I start to cry / because / by the crossroads / the cops are crucified.»