But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o’er a secret wrung from nature’s close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep thro’ every nerve.
XII
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.
“The soul, doubtless, is immortal – where a soul can be discerned.
XIII
“Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
“Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
“Butterflies may dread extinction, – you’ll not die, it cannot be!
XIV
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
“Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
“What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
XV
“Dust and ashes!” So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too – what’s become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
Two in the Campagna
(Двое в Кампанье[25 - Кампанья – равнина вокруг города Рима, изобилующая руинами.])
I
I wonder do you feel today (я думаю/задаюсь вопросом: чувствуешь ли ты сегодня)
As I have felt since, hand in hand (как я чувствовал с тех пор, как, держась за руки),
We sat down on the grass, to stray (мы сели на траву, чтобы побродить)
In spirit better through the land (душой: «в духе» лучше по /этой/ местности),
This morn of Rome and May