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НОЧЬ, УЛИЦА, ФОНАРЬ, АПТЕКА
Ночь, улица, фонарь, аптека,
Бессмысленный и тусклый свет.
Живи еще хоть четверть века
Все будет так. Исхода нет.
Умрешь—начнешь опять сначала,
И повторится все, как встарь:
Ночь, ледяная рябь канала,
Аптека, улица, фонарь.
10 октября 1912
*
Night, street, streetlight, a pharmacy.
A senseless, drab light all about.
Live twenty-five more years and see,
Nothing will change. There’s no way out.
Die and you will restart it all
As long ago. Things will repeat:
Night, icy ripple of a canal,
Streetlight, the pharmacy, the street.
Translated from Russian by A.Z. Foreman. This translation was first published in “Poems Found in Translation”.
* * *
Дома растут, как желанья,
Но взгляни внезапно назад:
Там, где было белое зданье,
Увидишь ты черный смрад.
Так все вещи меняют место,
Неприметно уходят ввысь.
Ты, Орфей, потерял невесту, —
Кто шепнул тебе — «Оглянись…»?
Я закрою голову белым,
Закричу и кинусь в поток.
И всплывет, качнется над телом
Благовонный, речной цветок.
5 ноября 1902
*
Houses rise like wishes,
But suddenly you look back:
Where you saw white niches,
You see only detritus, black.
Thus everything shifts and changes,
Imperceptibly flies away.
You, Orphée, lost your bride to Hades.
Who whispered to you “look astray”?
With white my head I will cover,
I’ll scream and plunge in a stream.
And a riverine fragrant flower
Above my body will rise a-gleam.
Translated from Russian by Nina Kossman. This translation was first published in “Silo” (Bennington College annual literary journal, 1980).
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