Marina Tsvetayeva. To Sergei Efron-Durnovo.

1

Such voices can be, 
That you're silent, don't repeat them, 
So that wonders you foresee. 
There are also giant eyes 
The color of the sea  

Now he stands in front of you: 
Look at forehead and at blood 
And compare him with you! 
The decrepit blood, 
Tiredness turned blue.  

Of each noble vein 
Blueness triumphs. 
Gesture of the prince and lion 
With a white foam lace 
Repeats again.  

Your regiment's - dragoon, 
Decembrists and Versaillians! 
You don't know - he's so young - 
Fingers ask for brushes,  
Spars and strings.  

2

Like seaweed, like branches of willows  
Of Malmazonia are your limbs, 
Thus you did lie in sprays of sea foam 
And absent-mindedly transfixed   

Upon the sweet light-golden melons 
Of diamond and aquamarine  
The eyes forever semi-open 
So blue-and-grayish, bluish-green.  

The waves are just like rabid lions, 
The arrows of the sun did fly. 
And from intolerable blueness  
Too whitish, you did there lie.  

Behind the back, the desert, somewhere 
The station Djankoi had to be, 
And underneath your arm stretched out 
Melon grew golden quietly.  

Thus, calm and precious, you lie there, 
Don't give a glance and do not see, 
But look - and waves will heave with power, 
And mountains will be moved to sea.  

And new moons will in sky be burning, 
And joyful lions will lie down 
Under the single downward leaning 
Of your head beautiful and young.   

By Marina Tsvetayeva
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat