A moon gate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

Bent and blackened the logs of the bridge's span
and burdocks grow as tall as man
and, dense, the thickets of nettles sing
that they never will know a sickle's sting.
There's a sigh at the lake when evening falls
and wrinkled moss creeps over the walls.

That's where I greeted

my twenty-first spring.
To my lips the pungent honey
was the sweetest thing.

Dry branches shredded

that white silk dress of mine.
A nightingale sang on and on
in the crooked pine.

He would hear me calling

and would leave his lair,
gentler than a sister,
though wild as a bear.

I would swim across the rivulet,

run uphill, but oh,
later I would never say
«Leave me now, go».

18 Jan. 1966

583. Анна Ахматова (1889–1966). «Heмудрено, что не веселым звоном…» [263]

And you, my friends, you who are so few by now—
with every passing day you are more dear!
How very short the road has grown
and how it used to seem of all the longest way!

26 Nov. 1992

584. Александр Блок(1880–1921). Перуджиа [264]

Half a day of toil, and half of ease,
azure smoke above the Umbrian hills.
Short and sudden shower, cooling breeze,
loudly out-of-doors a chorus trills.
In the window — one whose dark eyes smile,
under Perugino's fresco, there,
tries to reach a basket for a while
with a sunburnt hand, and does not dare.
In it lies a note for eager glances:
«Questa sera… cloister of St. Francis…»

15 May [1928]

585. Александр Блок (1880–1921). «Пройдет зима — увидишь ты…»

When winter goes — then you will see
my fields and fens that stretch away.
«What beauty!» you will say to me,
— «What lifeless slumber!» you will say.

But, child, remember, in the still

I kept my thoughts, and in that plain
I — restless, sorrowful, and ill —
Have waited for your soul in vain.

And in that dusk I guessed my fate,

stared into death's cold face, and long,
endlessly long I had to wait,
peering through mists that swam along.

But you passed by before my face,

— among the bogs my thoughts I kept
and in my soul a gloomy trace
of that strange lifeless beauty slept.

16 May [1928]

586. Александр Блок (1880–1921). «Мы шли на Лидо в час рассвета…» [265]

We walked toward Lido once at dawn,
the rain was gentle, like a net.
Without replying you were gone.
And soon I slept beside the wet.
I heard the waves, their steady falling,
because my sleep was light, I heard
the sounds, that shook with passion, calling,
loving (??) the sorceress, — the bird.
And then the gull — a bird, a maiden, —
came down and floated on the sea,
upon the waves of song, love-laden,
with which you always dwell in me.

12 June [1928]