Стихотворения

457. THE SKY AND THE STARS {*}

Fair is the evening sky, clear are the stars in the distance, as clear as the joy of an infant. Oh, why can't I tell myself even in thought: The stars are as clear as my joy! What is your trouble — people might query. Just this is my trouble, excellent people: the sky and the stars are the stars and the sky, whereas I am a man. People are envious of one another. I, on the contrary, — only the beautiful stars do I envy, only to be in their place do I wish. <1947>

458. THE WISH {*}

Open the door of my prison, let me see the daylight again, give me a black-eyed maiden and a horse with a jet-black mane. Over the wide blue grassland let that courser carry me, and just once, just a little closer, let me glance at that alien portion — that life and that liberty. Give me a leaky sailboat with a bench of half-rotten wood and a well-worn sail all hoary from the tempests it has withstood. Then I shall launch on my voyage, friendless and therefore free, and shall have my fling in the open and delight in the mighty struggle with the savage whim of the sea. Give me a lofty palace with an arbour all around where amber grapes would ripen and the broad shade fleck the ground. Let an ever-purling fountain among marble pillars play and lull me to sleep and wake me in a halo of heavenly visions and the cool dust of its spray. <1947>

Афанасий Фет {*}

459. ALTER EGO {*}

As a lily that looks at itself in a stream so my very first song was your mirrored dream. But whose was the triumph? Who gave and who took? Was it brook from blossom or blossom from brook? Your childish soul could so easily guess the thoughts I was inwardly moved to express. Though I live without you by a dreary decree, we are one — for nothing can part you and me. The grass on your grave in a distant clime is here in my heart growing greener with time. When I happen to glance at the stars, then I know that together like gods we had looked at their glow. Love has words of its own, these words cannot die. Our singular case special judges will try: in the crowd they will notice us right from the start — for as one we will come — we whom nothing can part. <Осень 1943>

460. «When life is torture, when hope is a traitor…» {*}

Die Gleichm"ossigkeit des Loufes der Zeit in allen K"opfen beweist mehr, als irgend etwas, dass wir Alle in denselben Traum versenkt sind, ja dass es Ein Wesen ist, welches ihrt tr"aumt. [20]

Schopenhauer, Porergo, II, 29.

When life is torture, when hope is a traitor, when in the battle my soul must surrender, then daily, nightly I lower my eyelids, and all is revealed in a strange flash of splendor. Like nights in autumn, life's darkness seems denser between the distant and thunderless flashes. Alone the starlight is endlessly friendly — the stars that sparkle through golden bright lashes. And all this lambent abyss is so limpid, so close is the sky to my spirit's desire, that, straight out of time into timelessness peering, your throne I discern, empyrean fire. And there the altar of all creation stands still and smokes in a glory of roses. Eternity dreams of itself, as the smoke-wreaths vibrate with the forces and forms it composes. And all that courses down cosmic channels, and every ray of the mind or of matter is but your reflection, empyrean fire, dreams, only dreams that flit by and scatter. And in that wind of sidereal fancies I float like vapor, now dimmer, now brighter — and thanks to my vision, and thanks to oblivion, with ease I breathe, and life's burden is lighter. <Осень 1943>

20

Равномерность течения времени во всех головах доказывает более, чем что-либо другое, что мы все погружены в один и тот же сон; более того, что все видящие этот сон являются единым существом. (нем.) — Ред.

461. THE SWALLOW {*}

When prying idly into Nature I am paticularly fond of watching the arrow of a swallow over the sunset of a pond. See — there it goes, and skims, and glances: the alien element, I fear, roused from its glassy sleep might capture black lightning quivering so near. There — once again that fearless shadow over a frowning ripple ran. Have we not here the living image of active poetry in man — of something leading me, banned mortal, to venture where I dare not stop — striving to scoop from a forbidden mysterious element one drop? <Осень 1943>

Фёдор Тютчев {*}

462. NIGHTFALL {*}

Down from her head the earth has rolled the low sun like a redhot ball. Down went the evening's peaceful blaze and seawaves have absorbed it all. Heavy and near the sky had seemed. But now the stars are rising high, they glow and with their humid heads push up the ceiling of the sky. The river of the air between heaven and earth now fuller flows. The breast is ridded of the heat and breaths in freedom and repose. And now there goes through Nature's veins a liquid shiver, swift and sweet, as though the waters of a spring had come to touch her burning feet. <1944>

463. TEARS {*}

O lacrimarum fons.

Gray.

Friends, with my eyes I love caressing the purple of a flashing wine, nor do I scorn the fragrant ruby of clustered fruit that leaves entwine. I love to look around when Nature seems as it were immersed in May; when bathed in redolence she slumbers and smiles throughout her dreamy day. I love to see the face of Beauty flushed with the air of Spring that seeks softly to toy with silky ringlets or deepen dimples on her cheeks. But all voluptuous enchantments, lush grapes, rich roses — what are you compared to tears, that sacred fountain, that paradisal morning dew! Therein divinest beams are mirrored, and in those burning drops they break, and breaking — what resplendent rainbows upon Life's thunderclouds they make! As soon as mortal eyes thou touchest, with wings, Angel of Tears, the world dissolves in mist, and lo! a skyful of Seraph faces is unfurled. <Осень 1944>

464. THE JOURNEY {*}

Soft sand comes up to our horses' shanks as we ride in the darkening day and the shadows of pines have closed their ranks: all is shadow along our way. In denser masses the black trees rise. what a comfortless neighborhood! Grim night like a beast with a hundred eyes peers out of the underwood. <Осень 1944>

465. SILENTIUM! {*}

Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal the way you dream, the things you feel. Deep in your spirit let them rise akin to stars in crystal skies that set before the night is blurred: delight in them and speak no word. How can a heart expression find? How should another know your mind? Will he discern what quickens you? A thought once uttered is untrue. Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred: drink at the source and speak no word. Live in your inner self alone within your soul a world has grown, the magic of veiled thoughts that might be blended by the outer light, drowned in the noise of day, unheard… take in their song and speak no word. <Январь 1944>

466. LAST LOVE {*}

Love at the closing of our days is apprehensive and very tender. Glow brighter, brighter, farewell rays of one last love in its evening splendor. Blue shade takes half the world away: through western clouds alone some light is slanted. О tarry, О tarry, declining day, enchantment, let me stay enchanted. The blood runs thinner, yet the heart remains as ever deep and tender. О last belated love, thou art a blend of joy and of hopeless surrender. <Январь 1944>

467. DUSK {*}

Now the ashen shadows mingle, tints are faded, sounds remote. Life has dwindled to a single vague reverberating note. In the dusk I hear the humming of a moth I cannot see. Whence is this oppression coming? I'm in all, and all's in me. Gloom so dreamy, gloom so lulling, flow into my deepest deep, flow, ambrosial and dulling, steeping everything in sleep. With oblivion's obscuration fill my senses to the brim, make me taste obliteration, in this dimness let me dim. <Осень 1944>