Плачущий Сад (Weeping Garden) by Boris Pasternak

 Dreadful! It drips and it listens -
whether it's all alone in the world
crushing a twig like lace at the window,
or is someone watching?

Palpable, though, is the pressure
of porous earth's taut swellings,
and far off, audible as in August,
midnight ripens in fields.

No, no sound, no witness,
Convincing there's no one there,
back it goes to its game of rolling
down roofs and across gutters.

I'll lift it up to my lips and listen -
whether I'm all alone in the world,
ready to burst out in sobs if I need to,
or is someone watching?

Silence. Not a leaf moving.
No dot of light, just weird
gulps and splashings about in slippers,
the lulls full of sighs and tears.


By Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к (Boris Leonidovich Pasternak)
(1917)
translated by Angela Livingstone

A recital of the poem in Russian:

Below is the poem in it’s original Russian cyrillic form:

 
Ужасный! — Капнет и вслушается,
Все он ли один на свете
Мнет ветку в окне, как кружевце,
Или есть свидетель.

Но давится внятно от тягости
Отеков — земля ноздревая,
И слышно: далеко, как в августе,
Полуночь в полях назревает.

Ни звука. И нет соглядатаев.
В пустынности удостоверясь,
Берется за старое — скатывается
По кровле, за желоб и через.

К губам поднесу и прислушаюсь,
Все я ли один на свете, —
Готовый навзрыд при случае, —
Или есть свидетель.

Но тишь. И листок не шелохнется.
Ни признака зги, кроме жутких
Глотков и плескания в шлепанцах
И вздохов и слез в промежутке.
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‘No one will be in the house’ by Boris Pasternak

 No one will be in the house
But twilight. Just the same
Winter day in the gap
The gathered curtains frame.

Only swiftly beating wings
Of white flakes as they fall.
Only roofs and snow, and but
For roofs and snow – no one at all.

And frost again will start too sketch.
And I again will find despairs
Of last year whirling me back
To another winter's affairs.

And they again will sting me
With last year's guilt, the same,
Unexpiated. Lack of wood
Will cramp the window-frame.

Then suddenly the curtain
Will shudder at the door
And you will come in, like the future,
Making no sound on the floor.

And you will stand there wearing
Something white, no lace, no braid,
Something made from the fabric
From which snowflakes are made.


by Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к
(Boris Leonidovich Pasternak)
(1931)
translated by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France