Don"t You Look At Me So Reproachfully.

Don"t you look at me so reproachfully.

I do not  bear malice to you,

But  I like your appearance awfully

And your seeming modesty,  too

Yes, you seem to be openhearted,

And I"d rather  be glad to see

How a fox pretending departed

Catches crows like you want to catch me.

Try to  catch me, I won"t  be daunted

Mind, you don"t have your ardour restrained!

Many girls of your kind have haunted

Stumbling over my heart that waned.

It"s not you that I love, my dearie,

You"re only an echo, a shade,

I imagine a different  girlie,

Oh so beautiful blue-eyed maid!

Though she isn"t so humble-looking

And  appears to be rather cool,

Her majestic manner of walking

Has rekindled the depth of my soul.

She"s a girl that cannot be cheated,

Notwithstanding your will she"ll entice,

Whereas you can"t be possibly  fitted

In my heart with embellished lies.

Though I scorn you,  yet like a layman

I will shyly and openly say:

If there weren"t any  hell and heaven

Man would think something up anyway.

December 1st, 1925

The Witch

White and dishevelled, she looks outrageous,

Rushing about, brisk and courageous.

Dark is the  night, it is scared to death, and

Clouds, like kerchiefs, have covered the crescent.

Wind, letting out  hysterical hoots,

Whirls like a shot to the back of the woods.

Fir-trees are threatening to hit with a spear

Owls lie hidden, a-wailing from fear.

Waving her harridan"s clutches, she shouts.

Up in the sky stars are winking from clouds.

Vipers, like rings,  hanging  down her hair,

Spinning with blizzard, she whirls in the air.

Ringing, the pines make the witch dance and cry.

Clouds grow dark as they, trembling, float by.

1915

Silver Bluebell, Are You Singing

Silver bluebell,  are you singing,

Or, perchance, my heart is dreaming?

Light from rosy icon flashes

Falling on my golden lashes.

Though I"m not that gentle infant

in the flapping splash of pigeons,

Yet my dreams are sweet and distant,

Somewhere in the woodland regions.

I don"t need  the narrow house,

Word and mystery won"t welcome.

Teach me, please, to dream and drowse,

Fall asleep and never waken.

1917

Oh My Dear Maple, Frozen Stiff And Bare...

Oh my dear maple, frozen stiff and bare,

Why do you stand bending in the blizzard there?

Have you seen a vision? Have you heard a babble?

Just like you are out for an idle ramble.

Like a tipsy warden,  walking  on the roadside,

You have stuck in snowdrift, hit by burning frost-bite.

I myself quite often lose my whereabouts,

Cannot find my house after drinking bouts.

Now I  see a willow, now some other trees, and

Sing them songs about summer in a blizzard.

I would think myself  to be a sort of maple,

Not a bare maple - verdant as in April.

And forgetting virtue, drunk as  drowned mouse,

I would hug a birch-tree like somebody"s spouse.

1925