Phantom

Перевод "Фантом"
http://www.stihi.ru/2008/02/11/2168



The silent portraits with their frozen features,
That look from walls of waste and desert rooms –
The keepers of unknown secret reaches,
Once hidden in the soul's abysmal wombs.

How many times the witnesses were you
Of flippant flight of fertile ideation,
You saw how fairy tales became the true,
You saw the figures of imagination.

You saw how my ideal slowly changed,
All my desires are well known to you –
The rueful look of my sad phantom ranged
Among your faces of the dingy hue...

Night after night I called to him again,
Entwining host of dreams in single face,
Slipping the cover like a dome of fane
On pictures that had closely eyed and gazed.

And figure that arose for many years
Had come to life by touching of the hands,
And I was catching with my sateless lips
Delightful wafts of mournful words he lent.

His lips were but a stranger to the smile,
His eyes were never lightened with the laughter,
And song of him, in violin sad style,
Sounded like echo dying out soon after.

I have unbosomed all my grief and sorrows
Looking into the eyes of dream that lured,
There was an answer in their silent hollows
That they have also known love and cure.

I fell asleep while sitting at the fire,
Lulled with the song about the spite and treason,
While pictures old was listening to inspirer,
Who came at night without any reason.

And in the morning only cold grey ashes
Reminded me of visit in the nights,
Of guest, that vanished with the first light flashes,
Of black melanite of the sparkling eyes.

But every night, like phoenix from the mist,
He comes again, so sorrowful and dark,
When evening shadows grow in the east
He's ready for my inner thoughts to hark...

I drown again in two abysmal wells
Of his black eyes, so wistful, sad and dark,
Only my heart rings like a hundred bells,
Unable to disguise desire's spark.

There was a love and there was a healing,
I felt the winy taste of fortune's wheel –
But it still seemed that only this my dreaming
Was only thing I had that was in real.

And there was not him – that him, another,
Who kissed my open lips and once admired;
He vanished like a spoken word that's smothered,
As if were living only in my mind.

And once again there was a sweetest languor,
And pastel-moony color of pale skin
Of phantom that endued my breast with angor,
Disturbing once again my soul with sin.

And bitter and intoxicating smile,
Which touched slightly thin illusive lips,
As if they tried, but vainly, for a while
To miss the poison and not let them sip...

I fell asleep while sitting at the fire,
Lulled with the song of treason and redeeming,
Inhaling cumin wrapping me like wire,
Choking and watching sunset slowly dimming.

I have been catching every breath of air,
Which made black clothes slightly wave and tremble,
And every fingers movement seemed so rare,
Seemed so unearthly, mystical and tender.

Night after night I called to him again,
And in the morning, when the shadows thinned,
I died like phoenix, feeling dread and pain
Without touching of his pallid skin...

The silent portraits with their frozen features
Were paling quickly, waiting for the sunset,
Losing the life like daylight-needing creatures
And watching my requital's blinding lancet.

He did not come, he's not appeared rather,
And only cold grey ash was laying piled –
He vanished like a spoken word that's smothered,
As if were living only in my mind.

And song about the treason and redeeming
Started vibrating in each gentle sound,
In murmur, cumin scent and sky that's teeming
With eastern stars yet shimmering around.

I have been striding room and once again
I called to vanished, slipped away illusion,
And squeezed with dead and not obeying hand
Remaining signs of recent soft intrusion...

With sightless, dying out, glassy eyes
I have been watching gleams of morning clutter,
And to celestial blue of waking skies
With dumb cold lips the curse and damn I muttered.

And sunset heaven, which like steel was rimming,
Still did not bring remission of mistakes...
But song about the treason and redeeming
Started to sound like echo on the lake.

With sleepy eyes, while musing at the fire,
I died with sun that's going to the hell –
Turning to pictures losing gloss they hired,
I all of sudden drowned in two black wells.

The satin-moony color of pale skin,
The lips with gentle smile of modest foison
And fingers, which - as if remitting sins -
Were holding out the goblet full of poison.

And I began to drink vivific sap
Feeling the cold and chill of fulgent tinning,
Measuring out with not obeying steps
My final pace on route to the beginning...

The silent portraits with their frozen features,
That look from walls of waste and desert rooms –
The keepers of unknown secret reaches,
Once hidden in the soul's abysmal wombs.

How many times the witnesses were them
Of once defeated, sad and broken lives,
But from behind the dust that veils the flam
They can not comprehend or criticize.

There was a love and there was a healing,
But taste of wine and fever of the nights
I gave for tender touch, so soft and thrilling,
Of icy hands and look of chasmal eyes.

Now lips are but a stranger to the smile,
But in my heart the languor burns like sun,
And may be, losing sins after a while,
I will become a phantom for someone...