Стихи Анна Ахматовой на английском - На английском языке - Стихи

Стихи Анны Ахматовой настолько популярны, что множество переведены на разные языки. Читаем русских классиков на английском!

I hear the oriole's always grieving voice,
And the rich summer's welcome loss I hear
In the sickle's serpentine hiss
Cutting the corn's ear tightly pressed to ear.

And the short skirts of the slim reapers
Fly in the wind like holiday pennants,
The clash of joyful cymbals, and creeping
From under dusty lashes, the long glance.

I don't expect love's tender flatteries,
In premonition of some dark event,
But come, come and see this paradise
Where together we were blessed and innocent.

Fragment

And it seemed to me that there were fires
Flying till dawn without number,
And I never found out things—those
Strange eyes of his—what colour?

Everything trembling and singing and
Were you my enemy or my friend,
Winter was it or summer?

The cuckoo I asked
How many years I would live . . . The
Pine tops shivered,
A yellow shaft fell to the grass.
In the fresh forest depths, no sound . . .
I am going
Home, and the cool wind
Caresses my hot brow.

Flight

For O. A. Kuzmin-Karavaev

'If we could only reach the shore,
My dear!'—'Sh! Be quiet!'. . .
And we started down the stairs,
Hardly breathing, searching for keys.

Past the house where we had once
Danced and drunk wine,
Past the Senate's white columns
To where it was dark, dark.

'What are you doing? You're mad!'—
'Not mad. In love with you!
This wind is wide and billowing,
Gaily it will take the ship!'

Throat tight with horror,
The canoe took us in the gloom . . .
The tang of an ocean cable
Burnt my trembling nostrils.

'Tell me—if you know yourself:
Am I asleep? Is this a dream? . . .'
Only the oars splashed evenly
Along the heavy Neva wave.

But the black sky grew lighter,
Someone called to us from a bridge.
With both hands I seized the chain
Of the cross on my breast.

Powerless, I was lifted in your arms
Like a young girl on to the deck
Of the white yacht, to meet the light
Of incorruptible day.

The road is black by the beach-Garden.
Lamps yellow and fresh.
I'm very calm.
I'd rather not talk about him.

I've a lot of feeling for you. You're kind.
We'll kiss, grow old, walk around.
Light months will fly over us
Like snowy stars.

The Voice of Memory

For O. A. Glebova-Sudeikina

What do you see on the wall, your eyes screwed up
When in the sky the sunset's burning late ?

Do you see a seagull on the water's blue
Cloth, or gardens by the Arno ?

Or the great lake of Tsarskoye Selo
Where terror stepped in front of you ?

Or the young man who left your captivity, left
You by walking into death like a white night ?

No, I am looking only at the wall's
Reflections of the dying heavenly fires.

Imitation of Annensky

And with you, my first vagary,
I parted. In the east it turned blue.
You said simply: 'I won't forget you.'
I didn't know at first what you could mean.

Rise and set, the other faces,
Dear today, and tomorrow gone.
Why is it that at this page
Alone the corner is turned down ?

And eternally the book opens
Here, as if it's the only part
I must know. From the parting moment
The unreturning years haven't departed.

O, the heart is not made of stone
As I said, it's made of flame . . .
I'll never understand it, are you close
To me, or did you simply love me?

In Memory of Mikhail Bulgakov

This, not graveyard roses, is my gift;
And I won't burn sticks of incense:
You died as unflinchingly as you lived,
With magnificent defiance.
Drank wine, and joked—were still the wittiest,
Choked on the stifling air.
You yourself let in the terrible guest

And stayed alone with her.
Now you're no more. And at your funeral feast
We can expect no comment from the mutes
On your high, stricken life. One voice at least
Must break that silence, like a flute.
O, who would have believed that I who have been
tossed

On a slow fire to smoulder, I, the buried days'
Orphan and weeping mother, I who have lost
Everything, and forgotten everyone, half-crazed—
Would be recalling one so full of energy
And will, and touched by that creative flame,
Who only yesterday, it seems, chatted to me,
Hiding the illness crucifying him.

Imitation from the Armenian

I shall come into your dream
As a black ewe, approach the throne
On withered and infirm
Legs, bleating: 'Padishah,
Have you dined well? You who hold
The world like a bead, beloved
Of Allah, was my little son
To your taste, was he fat enough ?'