Esenin, A Song / Есенин, Соловушка / Песня (subs by V. Chetin)
There is a becoming song
that a nightingale can share,
That song is a funeral dirge
for my wretched brawling head:
Careless, flourished lavishly,
and matured at knives drawn,
Now, as if bereft of life,
suddenly got bent down.
My reflections-muses!
Crown and whiskers are all pain.
Somehow dissipated youth
before time, ahead of age.
How it should have happened,
cannot figure out.
Clasp to heart a hardened pillow
tenderly at night.
Broaden you song resonant,
do make up a doleful warble.
In the dark it feels as if
clasped to bosom a heartthrob.
There is a harmonika an'
crescent's radiance outside,
Yet I'm certain I will not
come across a honey mine.
Love is like a guilder-rose,
blood's a cherry break of day,
Like a seasoned, old guitar,
like a virginal refrain,
With the likewise countenances,
with the likewise joys and pains,
Sung about by ancestors,
sung about by their heirs.
Drink and sing when you are young,
hit your lives without a miss;
Anyway, your honey will
wither like a cherry tree.
I have withered, don't know where:
on a bender or in fame.
Was adorable, when young,
whereas left alone, these days.
Hence there's a becoming song
that a nightingale can share.
That song is a funeral dirge
for my wretched brawling head:
Careless, flourished lavishly,
and matured at knives drawn,
Now, as if bereft of life,
suddenly got bent down.