Я знаю правду!

Amidst the dust of bookshops, wide dispersed

    And never purchased there by anyone,

Yet similar to precious wines, my verse

    Can wait: its turn will come.

Trad: Vladimir Nabokov

I know the truth! All former truths are swept away!

No longer now do people need to fight each other.

And see: the evening’s here; and see, night ends the day.

So what have you to say, O poet, general, lover?

And now a wind blows up; the dew begins to seep,

And in the sky a starry blizzard soon will harden,

And we on earth who never let each other sleep,

Will soon be sleeping underneath an earthy burden.

Trad: Rupert Moreton

Autumn, 1908. Moscow

There, where a million lampade-stars

Burn in the face of ancient time,

Where evening ringing's sweet to heart,

Where towers are in love with sky;

There, where in shade of airy folds

Transparent-white wander the dreams,

I fathomed meaning of old riddles,

A moon-believer I became.

In madness, with a fitful breathing,

To know all to the root sought I:

To what mysterious suffering

The queen is given in the sky

And why to homes from ancient years

She tenderly leans, all alone...

What on the earth they call betrayal —

All has been stated by the moon.

Amid the blankets with silk sowed

By windows of grim palaces,

The tired queens I did behold,

A quiet call within their eyes.

I saw how in the ancient stories

The swords, the crown, the coat of arms,

The light from ancient sickle pouring

In someone's childish, childish eyes.

Oh how many eyes had stared

From these windows after him with angst,

And how many did he lure

There, where is peace and happiness!

I saw the nuns that were in pallor,

Children that had rejected earth,

And in the holy, holy prayers

The fire of passion I have caught.

“I want to live! Wherefore is God?” —

I asked in wandering of eyes;

And in the mourning clothes' folds

Bound for the moon long, heavy sigh.

Tell me, O moon, why they had woe

The prison of their rooms within?

For whose sake perished without glory

The slave girls with the souls of queens,

That from their deaf sleeping chambers

Would tear into the fields of green?

And sorrowful was the moon's answer

Beside the wall of sad Kremlin.

Trad: Ilya Shambat

Marina Tsvetaeva