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1957

599. Мария Визи. «Вот бредем пустым суходолом…»

We roam a waterless valley — but are we asleep or awake? The wind stirs the treetops above us with its ragged hem in its wake. Here once a stream was running, but its source has long been dry. Only the sting of the half-moon and desert's fathomless sigh. From grandfathers' fairytales — there once was a source, we know. But we can't recall, half-dreaming, when? and where did it flow? We are lost. We are searching for landmarks. Our hearts in their last despair are poorer than starving beggars that stand in the city square.

5 Dec. 1967

600. Николай Гумилев(1886–1921). «У меня не живут цветы…»

Flowers never live in my house, but a minute they soothe the eye, in a couple of days they die; flowers never live in my house. Birds either don't live here long, only ruff their feathers and frown, and by morning — a ball of down… Even birds do not live here long. Only volumes in eight long rows, silent volumes of many pages, guard the languorous thought of ages, like teeth, in eight long rows. The man who sold them to me, I recall, was hunch-backed and poor… …By the graveyard he kept his store, did the man who sold them to me.

[1930s]

601. Николай Гумилев(1886–1921). Свиданье

Tonight you will be coming soon, and I will understand why all alone beneath the moon it feels so strange to stand. Pale, you will check your step, and throw away your cape and hood, does not the full moon likewise flow above the somber wood? And by the magic of her ways and by yourself spell-bound, I will be happy — with my days, the dark and stillness round. So in the woods a beast which smells that spring is coming soon the rustling of the hours tells and goes to watch the moon. And softly to the glen he creeps to wake the dreams of night, and with the moon's own movement keeps his step, that's ever light. Like he, I will be speechless too, will look and lose my strength, and guard the solem n seal of you, o, Night, throughout your length! There will be m any shining moons within myself and near, and pallid shores of ancient dunes, alluring, will appear. And from the darkness which unfurls the ocean green that roars will bring me flowers, corals, pearls the gifts of distant shores. And there will be a thousand sighs of creatures dead and far, and somber sleep of silent eyes, and wine from every star. Then you will go, and I will stay to hear the moon's last tune, and see the dawning of the sky above the pallid dune.