Everyone has his special magic words,
And on the surface they mean nothing,
But when they are recalled, they flash and slip right by
And yet our heart begins to laugh and cry.
I don't like to repeat them, for I guard
Them from myself, forgetting them on purpose.
But I will meet them on the other shore,
For they are written on the gates of Heaven.
У каждого свои волшебные слова.
Они как будто ничего не значат,
Но вспомнятся, скользнут, мелькнут едва,
И сердце засмеется и заплачет.
Я повторять их не люблю; я берегу
Их от себя, нарочно забывая.
Они мне встретятся на новом берегу:
Они написаны на двери Рая.
«We are so bound up in discord / The centuries cannot disentangle us — / I’m a warlock, you’re a wolf. We’re close / In the continuous dictionary of earth. Shoulder to shoulder, like the blind, / And led along by destiny, / In the undying dictionary of this country / We’re both...»
«A German machinegunner will shoot me in the road, or / An incendiary bomb will break my legs, or An SS-kid will give me a bullet in the gut. / In any case, on this front, they’ve got me covered. Without my name, or glory, or even boots, / With frozen eyes I’ll gaze at the snow, blood-col...»
«The Lethe’s wind is blowing over me / With anodyne and slow beatitude. / “Where should I with such a muteness be, / When the perfection is so blind and rude.” Being exhausted, deathly granite grows / Silent and cold over the darkling water / “It’s time, my friend. The city sadl...»
«A chart of living daubed I, quickly, / the paint from jam jar did I splatter; / I fingered plate of aspic, sickly / with curving prows through ocean water. / In scale of pickled herringed letter — / a proclamation from new lips. / And you / a nocturne could / ...»