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 | Sergei Esenin |
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* * *
There's one joy left to me:
whistling With two fingers in my mouth.
The tale that I like tavern-brawling
And swearing has got about.
How really comic the loss is!
In life many more we know.
I'm ashamed I believed in God once,
I regret not believing now.
How deep were the vistas, how golden!
All perish in life's grim night.
I swore and I raised hell, so as
To burn with a brighter light.
The poet's gift-soothing or harrying-
Was on me by fate bestowed.
I wanted on earth to marry
A white rose to a black toad.
What matter if my fair intentions
Their fulfilment never saw?
If fiends in my heart have nested,
There were angels in it before.
For the sake of this murky merriment,
When for other shores I am bound
I would like at the very last moment
To beg those who'll gather round
That for all my sins and failings,
For distrusting blessings, may I
In a Russian blouse be laid out
Under the icons to die.
1923
* * *
I am happy as heaven above,
Home parts no more fondly recalling.
For the first time I write about love,
For the first time renounce tavern-brawling.
I was just like a garden gone wild,
For women and drink were my weakness.
Now dancing and drink I despise,
And wasting my life without reason.
I wish simply on you to gaze,
At your hazel-brown eyes to wonder,
To hope that you, scorning past days,
Will never leave me for another.
Your graceful and slim waist I scan,
If only you had a notion
What true love a hooligan
Could offer you, what devotion.
At taverns no more would I glance,
I'd give up the writing of poetry
Just gently to touch your hands
And hair, the colour of autumn.
I'd follow you, never give up,
Wherever you went exploring...
For the first time I write about love,
For the first time renounce tavern-brawling.
1923
* * *
Though by another you be drained,
For me remains the glint mysterious
Of your long tresses, there remains
Your languid eyes' autumnal weariness.
Age of maturity! I vow
You're dearer now than youth or summer.
In my imagination now
You charm the poet in me doubly.
At heart I'll never tell a lie.
Therefore I may say without flinching,
When boastfulness needs a reply,
That with my hooligan ways I've finished.
It's time to break with mischief now
And recklessness that bubbles over.
I have already drunk enough
Of a brew that makes the bloodstream sober.
September has tapped on my pane
With purple osier-bough advising
Me I should be prepared to greet
Its uncapricious soft arrival.
With much I now have made my peace
Without loss and without compulsion.
The cemeteries different seem,
So do the cottages - and Russia.
With clearer eyes I look around,
The answer always is the same one:
That you alone, sister and friend,
Could be the poet's true companion,
That I could sing to you alone,
Stability to me imparting,
Of twilight hours upon the road
And hooligan habits departing.
1923
* * *
Its black eyebrows evening lowers,
Someone's horses champ at the door.
Was it yesterday that I threw away
My youth, found I loved you no more?
Tardy troika team, stop your snorting!
Without trace passed the life we led.
Tomorrow I may be forever
Laid to rest in a hospital bed.
Or else I may leave, a very
Different person, cured for all time,
The song of the rain, of bird cherry
To hear again, as in life's prime.
I'll forget those malignant forces
That made me chafe and fret. Kindly face!
Dear adorable features!
You alone I shall not forget.
And what if I love another,
My new love too shall hear
From my lips about you, beloved,
Whom I used to call "my dear".
She'll hear of our life spent drifting
On the stream of days that have fled.
Just look to what plight you have driven
My wild and unruly head!
1923
* * *
Years of my unruly youth, notorious and noisy,
I myself have poisoned you with a bitter poison.
Whether I'll die soon or later on I've no idea.
Eyes that once were blue as blue, now so pale appear.
Joy, where are you? All is dark—grief and pain I suffer.
Are you in the fields? Or tavern, maybe? There is nothing.
I put out my hand and from sounds alone I gather...
Off we drive... a sleigh... deep snow ... through a wood we gallop.
Hey there, driver! Go full tilt! You've got guts, I'll wager.
On such rutted tracks do not grudge your soul a shaking.
All the driver says is this: "You're in serious trouble
If your horse sweats in a snowstorm, going at the double."
"Driver, you're a coward! Going slow is not our habit!"
I myself took up the whip and let the horses have it!
Like the wind the horses flew, miles flew by unnoticed.
Then a sudden jolt... and I landed in a snowdrift.
Opening my eyes I saw that the sleigh had vanished,
In a hospital bed I lay with my head all bandaged.
And instead of horses three, down the highway dashing,
With a blood-red dressing my iron bed I'm lashing.
On my watch the hands are twisted, their moustaches curling.
Bending low to peer at me stand the sleepy nurses.
"Listen, goldilocks!" they say, "you're too wild and noisy,
You're to blame for your own ruin, drinking bitter poison.
"Whether you shall die or live we have not a notion.
It's in taverns your blue eyes got their thorough soaking".
1924
LETTER TO MOTHER
Still around, old dear? How are you keeping?
I too am around. Hello to you!
May that magic twilight ever be streaming
Over your cottage as it used to do.
People write how sad you are, and anxious
For my sake, though you won't tell them so,
And that you in your old-fashioned jacket
Out onto the highroad often go,
That you often see in the blue shadows
Ever one dream, giving you no rest:
Someone in a drunken tavern scuffle
Sticks a bandit knife into my chest.
Don't go eating your heart out with worry,
It's just crazy nonsense and a lie.
I may drink hard, but I promise, mother,
I shall see you first before I die.
I love you as always and I'm yearning
In my thoughts for just one thing alone,
Soon to ease my heartache by returning
To our humble low-roofed country home.
I'll return when decked in white the branches
In our orchard are with spring aglow.
But no longer wake me up at sunrise,
As you used to do eight years ago.
Do not waken dreams no longer precious,
Hopes never fulfilled do not excite.
It was my misfortune to experience
Loss and weariness too soon in life.
Don't tell me to pray again! Please, mother!
There's no going back, try as you might.
You alone give me support and comfort,
You alone glow with a magic light.
So forget your cares, please. Don't be anxious
And for my sake, dear, don't worry so.
Out onto the road in your old-fashioned
Jacket, please, do not so often go.
1924
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