Bow and Strings

Адаптация стихотворения Иннокентия Анненского "Смычок и струны", вошедшего в антологию сборника "Opium Dreams.Echoes of Russian Decadence"

What heavy darkness, what a dream
How moon;blurred rise these heights of night!
For years the bow had touched that gleam,
Yet never knew the strings in light.

Who needed us? What hand had stirred
Two yellow faces, faint as dawn?
The bow then felt without a word
 Some presence bind them, newly drawn..

“So long ago… Through all this dim,
Say only this: are you the same?”
The strings reached out and clung to him
They rang, yet trembled at his flame.

“No more apart… Is it not so?
Enough of parting, ache, and fear…”
The violin breathed back her “yes,”-though
Her heart still answered with a tear.

The bow fell silent, understood;
The violin kept echo’s thread…
And what for them was harsh and crude
Seemed music to the world instead.

The man let all the candle burn
Till dawn erased the night away.
The strings lay still, with no return,
On velvet black at break of day.