My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise, richly compiled,
Reserve their character with golden quill
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'( Read more... )

Я и ты - простые антонимы,
Неслагаемые в мы.
В словаре из людей синонимов
Алфавитная тень толпы.

Бесполезные сны омонимы,
С виду общие, но увы.
Я и ты лишь слова антонимы,
Проживание пустоты.

Who is it that says most which can say more
Than this rich praise -- that you alone are you,
In whose confine immurd is the store
Which should example where your equal grew?
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory,( Read more... )

I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
I found (or thought I found) you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet's debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you yourself, being extant, well might show( Read more... )

О Господи, тяжка как пустота,
Не тяжестью своей, а постоянством.
Пространство меж материей ума,
Пустое и холодное пространство.

I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subjects, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,( Read more... )

Предпоследний этаж
раньше чувствует тьму,
чем окрестный пейзаж;
я тебя обниму
и закутаю в плащ,
потому что в окне
дождь -- заведомый плач
по тебе и по мне.

1960-е, И.Бродский

Or shall I live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I (once gone) to all the world must die;( Read more... )

Уж нет тебя,
Но с фотографии всё смотришь,
Усталый, уступающий судьбе,
Как тот солдат
По два блина - "Куда мне по три?",
По два горба
Одной спине.
Уж ноги не болят,
Рука в трудах не пухнет,
С похмелья не болеешь головой,
На божьей пенсии...
И смерть твоя на кухне
Всегда со мной.

O how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,( Read more... )