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?..
«We will not drink from the same cup — / Neither water nor sweet wine is ours, / We will not kiss as the sun goes up / Or gaze at the night, on the sill, for hours. / I breathe by the moon, you – by the sun, / But the love that keeps us alive is one. My loyal friend is constantly with ...»
«There’s a smile I make, just like so: / Barely moving my lips, just enough. / I have kept it for you, as you know — / After all, it was given by love. / You can be disrespectful and stormy, / You love others, but that is all right. / There’s a golden lectern before me, / And my g...»
«A loved one makes her demands at will! / But she who’s unloved has no say. / How happy I feel that the water grows still / Under the ice today. And I shall tread — with Christ beside me! — / On this shroud, so fragile and light. / So our descendants can judge us rightly, / Keep my...»
«We met there for the final time again / On the embankment, where we’d always go. / There was high water on the Neva then, / And all were scared that it may overflow He spoke about the summer and he said / A woman and a poet — too bizarre. / I still recall the Fortress overhead, / An...»