A moon gate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

24 June 1961

608. Георгий Иванов (1894–1958). «Меня влечет обратно в край Гафиза…»

The land of Hafiz calls me back, to rove
where my Gulnara's gaze shone green and bright,
and tentwise over her and me above
was spread the sapphire chasuble of night.

And memory, deprived of all these things,

looks everywhere for landmarks of that vale
where waits the lute, forsaken, and where sings
to ageless rose, an ageless nightingale.

[1960s]

609. Георгий Иванов (1894–1958). «Оттого и томит меня шорох травы…»

I am filled with a sadness by whispering grass —
it will wither, and roses will die and decay,
and your own precious body will also, alas,
be changed into flowers, and turned into clay.

All memory of us will vanish. And then

skilled fingers will fashion a beautiful thing,
a pitcher of clay, which will live once again
and be filled to its wide golden throat at spring.

And someone, perhaps, by the well where they meet

embracing each other, with sunset aglow,
will drop that dear clay, which will slip to her feet
and ring as it breaks into fragments below.

[1960s]

610. Лазарь Кельберин (1907–1975). «Когда пятнистая луна…»

At times when the spotted moon
with torn and ragged clouds is strewn;
at times when in the city stream
the isle of dead its last does dream,
and every leaf on every tree
is full of spring impurity,
— then, hiding in the twilight thick,
a man will make his step more quick,
and hasten from that road and past
where crosses come to life and stare,
and on one's breath a shadow cast
from rocky height that rise up there…
— There by the cemetery wall,
you stood with me, — do you recall?
And fresher than a mountain stream
the April kiss to us did seem.

20 May [1930s]

611. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). Ангелу-хранителю [272]