Отговорила роща золотая 
Березовым, веселым языком, 
И журавли, печально пролетая, 
Уж не жалеют больше ни о ком.
 

Кого жалеть? Ведь каждый в мире странник 
Пройдет, зайдет и вновь оставит дом. 
О всех ушедших грезит конопляник 
С широким месяцем над голубым прудом.
 

Стою один среди равнины голой, 
А журавлей относит ветер в даль, 
Я полон дум о юности веселой, 
Но ничего в прошедшем мне не жаль.
 

Не жаль мне лет, растраченных напрасно, 
Не жаль души сиреневую цветь. 
В саду горит костер рябины красной, 
Но никого не может он согреть.
 

Не обгорят рябиновые кисти, 
От желтизны не пропадет трава. 
Как дерево роняет тихо листья, 
Так я роняю грустные слева.
 

И если время, ветром разметая, 
Сгребет их все в один ненужный ком. 
Скажите так... что роща золотая 
Отговорила милым языком.
 

Сергей Есенин, 1924

---

The golden  birch-tree grove has fallen silent
Its merry  chatter having  stopped afore,
The cranes up there flying over, sullen,
Have nobody to pity any more.

Whom should they pity? Each is just a trotter.
One comes and goes and leaves for good again.
The moon  and  hempen  bush above the water
Remember all those perished, filled with pain.

I'm standing on the plain all on my own,
The cranes, the wind is taking them away,
I think about my boyhood which  has flown,
And I do not regret my bygones anyway.

I don"t regret the days that I discarded,
I don"t feel sorry for the lilac of my soul.
The purple rowan burning  in the garden
Can't warm and comfort anyone at all.

The rowan will maintain its coloration.
The grass exposed to heat will not decease,
I drop my words of sorrow and vexation
The way a tree drops quietly its leaves.

And if some day   the wind of time intended
To rake them all up in a useless roll...
You ought to say:  the golden grove has ended
Its lovely chatter in the prime of fall.

A.S. Vagapov 

---

The golden grove is no longer laughing,  
And all birch-trees stay silent, gray, and sad, 
And flying by, the cranes care of nothing,    
They go far and they do not regret. 

Regret? For whom? We all are pilgrims here:     
Come, stay some time, and then forever leave;  
Our names, on the reflection of Moon's sphere  
In a pond, are written by a whirling leaf. 

I stay alone with a naked plain around  
Watching the cranes who're carried by the blast;    
Of older days I hear the cheerful sound,    
Yet, nothing I would pity in the past:  

Not any girl that I so much admired  
Nor all these years that I spent in vain.  
Let in the forest burn the rowan fire,   
But nobody any heat can gain.   

In flame the berries do not disappear, 
They stay for the non-passing hungry birds.
Like trees shed leaves that one can hardly hear,   
The same way I am shedding sorrow words. 

And if the vortex of the time, lamenting,                               
Will rake them all in one unworthy pile,    
You say, "the golden grove is just ending  
Its banal story in the flowerly style". 

VG, 12 ноября, 2012