[1960s] 643. Владимир Смоленский (1901–1961). Стихи о звезде[299] Burn in the foggy whiteness, burn, burn in the fog of icy skies, lighting the murky twilight stillness with your bright body as it flies. And soaring from the crowded heaven, enter my crowding prison walls through the slit window, like a bird, to visit me when evening falls. Soaring above decay and coldness, incomprehensible, though near, glide, circling from the vaulted ceiling down to the dusty corners here, that — even for the briefest moment! and though I burn my fingers through — I am allowed, in sweetest torment, to touch the body that is you. [1960s] 644. Владимир Смоленский(1901–1961). «Enormous world, embraced by sleep and dusk…»[300] Enormous world, embraced by sleep and dusk, in which we live so close we gasp for breath not guessing the beginning or the end, dreaming of happiness which conquers death. This indestructible, poor mortal land! But close your eyes: another lies beyond — A world in which you are a midnight star immobile in its speechlessness and bright, — a world in which I am a limpid pool whose face reflects your ever-shining light. Above this world, that other will appear — that's quite transparent, and quite simply clear. [1960s] 645. Владимир Смоленский (1901–1961). «Как лебедь медленно скользящий…»[301] A graceful swan that's slowly gliding upon the mirror of the lake, a falcon in the clouds abiding — my dream-invented world is riding in phantom imagery's wake. Between its wings, unfurled and gleaming, I slowly drift, not knowing where, sweetly and languorously dreaming, regretting nothing, nor redeeming, melting in this transparent air. And this prophetic voice of mine, voice of my soul in dream's embrace, above abysmal darkness flying, is echoed hollowly, and, dying, it disappears without a trace. [1960s] 646. Владимир Смоленский(1901–1961). «They will live very crowded — this Earth like a jail they will crowd…»[302] They will live very crowded — this Earth like a jail they will crowd, Cod and hell and eternity even they all will deny, and their houses of steel and concrete will reach up to the cloud, and a huge zeppelin to the farthermost planet will fly. And when over this world that is whirling the trumpet does sound, and the firmament over this Earth opens wide like a gate, and the lights all go out, and the graves open up in the ground, none will then understand what is meant or believe anymore. [1960s]
647. Владимир Смоленский(1901–1961). «В полночный час, когда луна…»[303] At midnight, when the pallid moon, shivering as from cold and pain, within its bluish aureole soars upward past your windowpane, when burnt by the celestial cold silently floating in the dark its rays that shimmer in the night are barely heard above the park, then, through the stillness and the dream, in all your grief of long ago, you will approach your windowsill and push the panes apart and go out of the darkness gliding up a path by human eyes unseen on which your foot will never slip nor will you falter or careen. And in the ringing solitude with hand outstretched and sleeping eyes heavy and cumbersome and slow above the darkness you will rise until from out the icy space, the earthly blackness void and still, some reveller's nocturnal voice suddenly rises sharp and shrill. Then, jolted, will the heavens rock and swim, and lights go out that shone, and dead onto the stones below the moon will tumble like a stone. [1960s] 648. Василий Сумбатов(1893–1977). Гиперборей[304] Akhmatova, Ivanov, Mandelshtam — forgotten notebook I have rescued here — «Hyperboreus» — home for transient verse of youthful poets in that happy year. I found it at the bottom of a trunk among my dusty archives lost retreat. And forty year — is that not ancient yet? To have survived so long — not yet a feat? «October. Notebook Light. Nineteen Thirteen». Year of the sunset, last bright, carefree year. For all that followed was not life at all, but time of reckoning, reprisal, fear. This notebook — witness of a golden age, these pages — that escaped the lethal stream! I open it, I read — my eyes are wet, — how young the poems, young the poets seem! And I — how old! How wasted all these years! How dark ahead what — emptiness behind! What awesome thought — that not a trace of me will anyone, in any notebook find! вернуться From the collection Наедине, Paris, 1938. вернуться Poem not found in a collection of this poet, presumably translated from a publication in a Russian emigre newspaper. вернуться From the collection Закат, Paris, 1931. вернуться Poem not found in a collection of this poet, presumably translated from a publication in a Russian emigre newspaper. вернуться From the collection Наедине, Paris, 1938. вернуться From the collection Стихотворения, Milan, 1977. |
