Меняя каждый миг свой образ прихотливый, Капризна, как...

Changing every moment my whimsical image,

Capricious as a child, and ghostly like smoke,

Life is seething everywhere in a fussy alarm,

Great mixed with the insignificant and funny.

What a disturbing hum and how a motley picture!

Here is a kiss of love, and there is a stab with a knife;

Here, the harlequin bells rang brazenly

And there comes a prophet bent under the cross.

Where the sun is - there is a shadow! Where are the tears and prayers

There is the hungry moan of rebellious poverty;

Yesterday, there was the height of a bloody battle,

And tomorrow, fragrant flowers will bloom.

Here is a wonderful pearl in the mud, trampled by the crowd,

And here is the fragrant fruit, undermined by the worm

Now you were a proud hero

Now you are a pale coward, suppressed by shame!

Here is life, here is this sphinx! Her law is an instant

And there’s no such sage among people,

So that he could tell the crowd - where is its movement,

Who could catch the features of her face.

It’s all sadness, then it’s all bait,

That everything in it is shine and light, then everything is shame and darkness;

Life is a seraph and a drunken bacchanal

Life is an ocean and a tight prison!


© Semyon Nadson. 1886