В Кремле - перевод М. Цветаевой

In Kremlin
by Marina Tsvetaeva

There, where millions of icon lamps are starring
Before the faces of the old ages,
Where the evening ring is sweet to heart,
Where the towers do like a heaven;
There, where in shadows of air folds
The fine and white dreams are roving -
I've understood the puzzles old,
I've become the moon's attorney.

In night delirium, with interrupted breath,
I tried to learn everything, to bottom:
What sufferings the queen of sky is undergoing,
Such mystery of her conduct, and also
Why she is leaning to the old buildings,
So tenderly and always so alone...
That were the so called tales, legends -
Which by moon were told.

In the embroidered coverlets, veils
At windows of gloomy palaces,
I've seen the tired queens, all there
With a silent call in looks detained.
I've seen, as if in old tales,
The swords, the wreath and the old emblem,
And in the childish-childish eyes there
I've grasped the moonlight, half-been, fairy.

Oh, how much eyes from those windows
Were following it with melancholy,
And how many a people were carried
To places, where there is silence and joy!
I've seen the nuns with pale faces,
The outcast children of the earth,
I've catched one thing in sacred praying:
The fire of the passions burning.
I've figured in the wandering of gazes:
"I wish to live!.. What's God for me?"
In folds of their funeral garments
The sigh to moon I've noticed.

Say, Moon, what for they suffered,
Being captived in their attics sad?
Why for they died - the bondmaids, rather
Having the souls of queens, and
From their close dark bedchambers
Trying to escape to vast green fields?

Moon's answer was in such a sad manner
The Kremlin red walls all within.

Autumn, 1908, Moscow