Здесь, меж вами: домами, деньгами, дымами,
Дамами, Думами,
Не слюбившись с вами, не сбившись с вами
Неким –
Шуманом пронося под полой весну:
Выше!из виду!
Соловьиным тремоло на весу –
Некий – избранный.
Боязливейший, ибо взяв на дыб –
Ноги лижете!
Заблудившийся между грыж и глыб
Бог в блудилище.
Лишний!Вышний!Выходец!Вызов!Ввысь
Не отвыкший…Виселиц
Не принявший…В рвани валют в виз
Веги – выходец.
9 февраля.
Here among you: your lodgings, your lucre, your smoke,
Your ladies, your Legislatures,
Having not got used to you, having not been blunted by you
Like a certain—
Schumann scudding along with spring on the sly:
From above! and beyond!
Like a nightingale’s suspended tremolo—
A certain one–is chosen.
The most timorous one, and having stretched him on the rack—
You lick his feet!
Having lost his way among your hernias and love-handles
God is left to wander among your lechers.
Superfluous! Embroidered! Walk-out! Upstart! Uppity
And not grown out of it . . . Unwilling to submit
To the gallows . . . Among your riot of currencies and visas
An exile from Vega—from a distant star.
9 February 1923
Translated from the Russian into English by Mary Jane White under license from Russica Press (New York, New York), with technical assistance by Olesia Lyskovtseva, Ph.D student, Second Language Acquisition; and Peggy Mills, Ph.D. Professor of Russian, University of Iowa.