Decades have passed. Impossible to count
your losses. All your palaces now lie
decaying. All your poets have been killed
by silence, bullet, or complete contempt.
Alone the name of Pushkin, as of old,
still shines above you like a glorious promise
— a token of the coming future truth.
[1960s]
619. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «Как много есть прекрасного на свете…»[280]
There s such a wealth of beauty in the world:
a maiden’s breast, a flying eagle's wing,
loaf of a maple, sunrise in Rialto,
a lily-of-the-valley in the spring;
a leaping doe; the Milky Way, a sail,
the Volga's great expanse, a child's eyes…
You see yourself: too many things to mention
for you and me to count or to surmise.
And yet is life not easier for knowing
that everywhere around you children roam,
and maples grow, and there are waves, and maidens,
or simply someone's garden and a home?
You say to me: All that is transient, passing!
But you are wrong! Next spring, in that green bower,
another doe will leap again, as lightly,
and underfoot will bloom another flower!
Our world is ill. It whispers invocations
and tries to smother what in life is true.
But nowhere in it stands a ruined building
where grass will not come up anew.
[1960s]
620. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «He камешком в мозаиках Равенны…»[281]
No pebble in ravenna's sculptured tomb,
nor crimson paint-dab in the Vatican, —
I merely was a wisp of merry spume
upon the ocean's blue and distant span.
But when a sail came toward me, I would swirl
to meet it; I have played with reefs near land,
caressed the body of a sun-tanned girl,
and, tired, dug into the golden sand.
My fleeting course no great event did jar;
for one chance moment was my fate unfurled,
yet I was happier and richer far
than all the tombs and castles of the world.
[1960s]
621. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «Высох ключ, струившийся в овраге…»[282]
Dry the source that ran in the ravine.
Hot the noon. But take a look again:
in the hollow stump, some moisture still —
fusty water left there by the rain.
Playing with your twig — be very careful
not ot splash it out around the brink —
even though it's pitifully scanty,
someone still may need it for a drink!
After dawn tomorrow some small creature —
squirrel, hedgehog — may come by this rill
and may drink. You too — who knows what happens? —
yet may taste it in a final thrill.
[1960s]
622. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «Прощаться всего трудней, потому…»[283]
It's hardest of all to say goodbye,
it is best to be alone to die.
For no one at all to be near, instead
just an empty room, a chair, a bed,
not to see anyone sadly weep,
not to have any small dog creep
from under your bed to lick your cheek,
or a sun ray come through a crack and peek,
or a butterfly dart in the window So
may it not be spring when I have to go!
May I die in the night! When a single star
may fall… and another… again… How far
easier, maybe, to go away
down such an
utterly
empty
way.
[1960s]
623. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «Я растерял их по пути…»[284]
I lost them all along the way,
those words 1 failed to clothe in sound.
Like swallows on a winter day,
never again can they be found.
I didn't show them much concern,
so they departed, taking wing.
And yet perhaps they will return
to others, in some future spring?
[1960s]
624. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). В комнате умершего[285]
Yes, now it's empty here… His silhouette is gone,
it isn't at the desk, nor in the easy-chair.
I his stillness! And the thought that he is here no more
How can you justify, how can you call it fair?
And yet — don't weep! And leave this vacant room!
Go down the stairs, stand by the window-pane,
look hard into the fading blue of dawn.
You see — that's he, there, striding down the lane!
Don't try to call — you cannot bring him back!
But know: he lives, his life will never end.
He had been visiting, and has gone off once more.
Listen — he's singing! Far…around the bend.
[1960s]
625. Довид Кнут (1900–1955). Я не умру и разве может быть[286]
I shall not die. Nor can it be, I know,
that earth without me in the gladsome space
would draw its thread of fire and ever go
along its senseless and its joyful race.
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280
From the collection