Our grandad’s outlandish dream,
the prison years of our heroes,
our hope and our heartfelt lament,
our prayer we hardly dared utter –
our dis-membered
dis-constituted,
dis-banded
Constituent Assembly.
Наших дедов мечта невозможная,
Наших героев жертва острожная,
Наша молитва устами несмелыми,
Наша надежда и воздыхание, —
Учредительное Собрание, —
Что мы с ним сделали?
«The sower walks down the even furrows; / his fathers all furrowed the path he follows. The young seed glitters gold in his hand, / but it must fall into the black ground. There, amid the tunnels of the blind worm, / it will die on its due day – and grow again. So now my soul treads the pa...»
«At the peep o day in the lift forgether / bonnie cloods like a steepled toun, / wi mony a dome like a bubble o gowd / and white roofs and white waas blinterin doun. O yon is my ain white city — / or I came to the earth I bade there! / abune the derk warld quhile it sleeps / in the rei...»
«Poor poet, was that really you, / addressing the moon in rhyme? / My eyes were dulled so long ago / by love, by cards and wine. The moon climbs through the window frame. / White light, so white it blinds you... / I bet on the Queen of Spades, / but I played the Ace of Diamonds.»
«Grant me years of sickness and fever; / make me sleepless for months at a time. / Take away my child and my lover / and the mysterious gift of rhyme. / As the air grows ever more sultry, / this is the prayer I recite: / and may the storm cloud over my country / be shot through with ray...»