Anna Akhmatova
The evening light is yellow, wide.
The cool of April's tender, soft.
You seem to visit lately, but
I'm glad and pleased, despite of all.
Oh dear, nearer to me please sit
And look at me with joyous eyes.
The old note-book, all filled
With childish poems we'll glance.
And pardon me for old hard tears
And lack of pleasure in sunshine.
Excuse me, that instead of dear
I've been receiving other one.
1915
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Широк и желт вечерний свет,
Нежна апрельская прохлада.
Ты опоздал на много лет,
Но все-таки тебе я рада.
Сюда ко мне поближе сядь,
Гляди веселыми глазами:
Вот эта синяя тетрадь -
С моими детскими стихами.
Прости, что я жила скорбя
И солнцу радовалась мало.
Прости, прости, что за тебя
Я слишком многих принимала.
1915
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см. также
Андрей Кнеллер
The evening sky is gold and vast.
I’m soothed by April’s cool caress.
You’re late. Too many years have passed, -
I’m glad to see you, nonetheless.
Come closer, sit here by my side,
Be gentle with me, treat me kind:
This old blue notebook – look inside –
I wrote these poems as a child.
Forgive me that I felt forsaken,
That grief and angst was all I knew.
Forgive me that I kept mistaking
Too many other men for you.
1915
=====
Broad Gold, The Evening
Broad gold, the evening colors glow,
The April air is cool and tender.
You should have come ten years ago,
And yet in welcome I surrender.
Come here, sit closer in our nook,
And turn gay eyes ar what my nurses
Might never glimpse: the blue-bound book
That holds my awkward childish verses.
Forgive me that I did not look
Sunward with joy, but dwelt with sorrow,
Forgive me all whom I mistook
For you, oblivious of the morrow.
Trans. by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, 1927,