Романс 2 1985
Translated by Ilya Shlyakhter ©

Romance 2

Where fate has robbed me, where it gave me bounties,
All said and done, what use is it to parse?
It's all so strange, my lady, this could count as
A heartbreak, if it wasn't such a farce – 
 
I'm not the same, just one among the commoners,
Your beauty, too, some have by far surpassed.
We simply are alike in our aloneness,
And that's the only thing uniting us.
 
When one of us falls down hard, a vanquished wreck,
The other won't pay heed amid life's din.
So why, before you, like a Bedlam resident
I'm crying and confessing every sin?
 
Why am I trembling, why through skies I'm fluttering,
Awaiting wonders, music in my soul – 
What for? What for? Can somebody please answer me – 
Of course, if this makes any sense at all.
 
Forgive me that, unkempt and coughing viciously,
I barged right through your winter quietude;
The worst is not that you have no need of me – 
It's that I too have no need of you,
 
And yet my very fate with all its heavy blows,
Its painful losses and capricious ways
Falls silent when your eyes, my lady, sparkle so,
They light my way, especially these days,
 
These days – when heaps of woe have never mounted
So quickly. Deadly winds are on the rise.
It feels as if my days are running out and
There's nothing left ahead except for nights – 
 
So shine for me, as long as time has yet to carve
Its aged seal across the heart or brow!
God be my witness, these are all the words I have,
Not that one could add much here, anyhow...