Русская
Кружевеет, розовеет утром лес,
Паучок по паутинке вверх полез.
Бриллиантится веселая роса.
Что за воздух! Что за свет! Что за краса!
Хорошо гулять утрами по овсу,
Видеть птичку, лягушонка и осу,
Слушать сонного горлана-петуха,
Обменяться с дальним эхом: «Ха-ха-ха!»
Ах, люблю бесцельно утром покричать,
Ах, люблю в березках девку повстречать,
Повстречать и, опираясь на плетень,
Гнать с лица ее предутреннюю тень,
Пробудить ее невыспавшийся сон,
Ей поведать, как в мечтах я вознесен,
Обхватить ее трепещущую грудь,
Растолкать ее для жизни как-нибудь!
1910 г.
Игорь Северянин (1887-1941)
Russian Woman
The forests grow pink and lacy in the dawn,
A spider sneaks slowly up his web,
The dewdrop wears a diamond gleam,
What air! What light! What beauty in all things!
It’s fun to walk the morning through oat fields,
To spy a bird, a frog, or wasp,
To hear a sleepy cockerel scream
With laughter at his distant echo.
How I love to shout aloud in the empty dawn,
How I love to meet a maiden in the birch trees,
Meet her and, leaning over a wattle fence,
Chase the predawn shadows from her face.
Rouse her from her still unfinished sleep,
Tell her how buoyed up I’ve been by dreams,
Encircle her trembling breast
And stir her into life some way.
Igor Severyanin, February, 1910
Translated by Bernard Meares
A Russian Song
Lace and roses in the forest morning shine,
Shrewdly the small spider climbs his cobweb line.
Dews are diamonding and blooming faery-bright.
What a golden air! What beauty! Oh, what light!
It is good to wander through the dawn-shot rye,
Good to see a bird, a toad, a dragon-fly;
Hear the sleepy crowing of the noisy cock,
And to laugh at echo, and to hear her mock.
Ah, I love in vain my morning voice to hurl,
Ah, off in the birches, but to glimpse a girl,
Glimpse, and leaning on the tangled fence, to chase
Dawn’s unwilling shadows from her morning face.
Ah, to wake her from her half-surrendered sleep,
Tell her of my new-sprung dreams, that lift and leap,
Hug her trembling breasts that press against my hart,
Stir the morning in her, hear its pulses start.
Igor Severyanin
Translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky
