“The celebrationsOf secret nonmeetings are empty,Unspoken conversations,Unuttered words.Glances that don't intersectDon't know where to come to rest.And only the tears rejoiceBecause they can flow and flow. Sweetbrier around Moscow,Alas! Somehow it is here ...And all this they will callLove eternal.”

“All's ringing, roaring, grinding, breakers' crash - and silence all at once, release:it means he is tiptoeing over pine needles,so as not to startle the light sleep of space.And it means he is counting the grainsin the blasted ears; it meanshe has come again to the Daryal Gorge,accursed and black, from another funeral.And again Moscow, where the heart's fever burns.Far off the deadly sleighbell chimes,someone is lost two steps from homein waist-high snow. The worst of times...”

“We are all carousers and loose women here;How unhappy we are together!”

“... he is rewarded with a form of eternal childhood,with the bounty and vigilance of the stars,the whole world was his inheritanceand he shared it with everyone.”

“Not under foreign skiesNor under foreign wings protected -I shared all this with my own peopleThere, where misfortune had abandoned us.”

“A land not mine, stillforever memorable,the waters of its oceanchill and fresh.Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk,and the air drunk, like wine,late sun lays barethe rosy limbs of the pinetrees.Sunset in the ethereal waves:I cannot tell if the dayis ending, or the world, or ifthe secret of secrets is inside me again.”

“It is good here: rustle and snow-crunch...Ski tracks on the splendid fineryof the snow; a memorythat long ages agowe passed here together.”