Стихотворения

I've never shed before — painful yet anodyne,
as if I had discharged a heavy debt,
as if the surgeon's knife had lopped away
a sick and throbbing limb! These tears, dear Mozart…
You must not mind them. Oh, play on, make haste,
flooding my soul with sound…

Alone.

Your sleep will be a long one, Mozart! — Nay,
it cannot be that what he said was true,
and I no genius. «Villainy and genius,
two things that do not go together». Wait:
that's false — for surely there was Buonarroti.
— Or is that but a legend, but a lie,
bred by the stupid mob, by their inane
vulgarity, and that great soul who wrought
the Vatican had never sunk to murder?

<21 апреля 1941>

440. EXEGI MONUMENTUM{*}

«No hands have wrought my monument; no weeds
will hide nation's footpath to its site.
Tsar Alexander's column it exceeds
   in splendid insubmissive height.

«Not all of me is dust. Within my song,
safe from the worm, my spirit will survive,
and my sublunar fame will dwell as long
   as there is one last bard alive.

«Throughout great Rus' my echoes will extend,
and all will name me, all tongues in her use:
the Slavs' proud heir, the Finn, the Kalmuk, friend
   of steppes, the yet untamed Tunguz.

«And to the people long shall I be dear
because kind feelings did my lyre extoll,
invoking freedom in an age of fear,
   and mercy for the broken soul».

Obey thy God, and never mind, О Muse,
the laurels or the stings: make it thy rule
to be unstirred by praise as by abuse,
   and do not contradict the fool.

<1944>

441. THE UPAS TREE{*}

Deep in the desert's misery,
far in the fury of the sand,
there stands the awesome Upas Tree
lone watchman of a lifeless land.

The wilderness, a world of thirst,
in wroth engendered it and filled
its every root, every accursed
grey leafstalk with a sap that killed.

Dissolving on the midday sun
the poison oozes through its bark,
and freezing when the day is done
gleams thick and gem-like in the dark.