A moon gate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

Never felt I more to be pitied,
ridiculous, clumsy, weak;
I dreamed I was turning blind,
the sky was a blackened streak.

Oh, weight of unseeing sadness,

remembrance of earthly day!
Invisible voices, crying,
ran past me upon their way.

Oh, death without putrefaction,

insatiable worm of night.
I summoned God to redeem me,
but it was you who replied.

The lower your voice, the softer,

the more the answer grew clear:
«My dear, I hear you, I hear you,
there is no salvation, dear!»

[1930]

641. Владимир Смоленский (1901–1961). Сердце [297]

It all will be as I have always wished:
over my feet the cover will be white
and white will be the ribbon of the wreath
around my forehead, grown cold and dark.

Keeping my earthly, my familiar look,

three long, three not-to-be-forgotten days
alone upon the table I will lie.
Pompous and solemn, the memorial mass
will be performed above me by the priest
and silently around me there will stand
my family, my enemies, my friends,
and those with whom I lived and whom I'd met;
and the transparent pallor of her face
will lend an added beauty to my wife.

It all will be as I have always wished.

And only you will never have a chance,

in your great longing and your last despair,
to touch my hand, my all but living hand,
to touch already my unseeing eyes.

And even into the wide open church

you will not dare to enter with the rest.
But, waiting for me somewhere on the way,
pressing your hand over your pain-stilled mouth,
you will observe my coffin floating past
silently, in the mist, without a trace…

And at that moment the dead heart in me

will suddenly, in mortal pity, shake,
and you will clearly hear the distant beat
— the beat, so long familiar, of my heart.
But people will not hear a sound.

[1930]

642. Владимир Смоленский(1901–1961). Окончено стихотворенье [298]

At last the poem is completed.
The soul is void, the soul is light.
The hand that holds the pen is shaking
as from a giddiness of flight.

The world of phantom, barely seen,

swaying, recedes into the gloom;
out of the darkness Earth arises
steadfast and ponderous as doom.

As only on a sheet of paper

a mark, unsure and indistinct,
reflects the light which fell from heaven
in smallest drops of drying ink.

And now the heart beats faster, weary,

as if beyond some starry goal
running across the plains of heaven
the body too had chased the soul.

[1960s]

643. Владимир Смоленский (1901–1961). Стихи о звезде [299]