Words
In the old days, when God cast down
His gaze upon the just created earth,
Words stopped the sun,
Words tore down whole towns.
The terror-striken stars
huddled round the moon
When words, like pink flaming tongues
Floated down through air.
The lower levels of beings,
Like domestic cows yoked
Were given numbers, since numbers
Suggest so many things.
The gray old patriach who'd brought
All of good and evil under hand,
Was careful not to make a sound,
So drew a number in the sand.
Thus we forget that only words
Stay brilliant in the light
Of everyday adversity. In Saint John
We find words are God himself.
We have limited what they might have meant
By the shallow shell of our lives,
And like bees in a dried-out hive,
left our rotten smelling words behind.
His gaze upon the just created earth,
Words stopped the sun,
Words tore down whole towns.
The terror-striken stars
huddled round the moon
When words, like pink flaming tongues
Floated down through air.
The lower levels of beings,
Like domestic cows yoked
Were given numbers, since numbers
Suggest so many things.
The gray old patriach who'd brought
All of good and evil under hand,
Was careful not to make a sound,
So drew a number in the sand.
Thus we forget that only words
Stay brilliant in the light
Of everyday adversity. In Saint John
We find words are God himself.
We have limited what they might have meant
By the shallow shell of our lives,
And like bees in a dried-out hive,
left our rotten smelling words behind.
Перевод стихотворения Николая Гумилёва «Слово» на английский язык.