Translation#1 by Philip Nikolayev
The golden grove has shed the conversation
of its green tongue, and quelled its birchen call.
Autumnal cranes in grave peregrination
no longer cry for anyone at all.
Who's there to cry for? Is not each man a wanderer,
arriving seldom and departing soon,
whom dreamy hemp fields will alone remember
with a blue pond lit broadly by the moon?
Alone, alone amid a naked flatland
I watch the cranes wax distant in the wind.
There's nothing I regret, however haunted
by thoughts of youthful merriment, my mind.
There is no point lamenting squandered years
or the soul's lilac blossoms, swiftly gone.
In orchards, rowan trees have lit their bonfires -
the flames are bright, but they can warm no one.
Bunched rowanberries blaze, but not to cinders,
and grasses will survive their yellow death.
As branches, leaf by leaf, give up their glories,
so pensive words stream freely from my mouth,
and if one day time's windy broom decided
to sweep them all into a useless ball,
you'd simply say, The golden grove is silent
of lovely tongue, and mute its birchen call.
Translation#2 - from RussianLegacy website
The grove of golden trees has fallen silent,
Shorn of its gay leaves, in mute silhouette,
And so the cranes in sad file past it flying
Have no cause any more to feel regret.
For whom, for what? We are all rovers, starting
Out, coming home awhile, then traveling on.
The hemp field's dreaming of all who departed
And there's a full moon gazing at the pond.
I stand alone, the bare expanses viewing,
While on the wind the cranes are borne away.
Remembrance of my merry youth pursuing,
I find nothing I would relive today.
I don't regret the years that I have wasted,
I don't regret the lilac time of life.
A rowan fire is in the orchard blazing
But none shall from its brightness warmth derive.
Red rowan-berry clusters cannot scorch you,
The grasses will no yellow and decline.
As leaves fall softly from a tree in autumn
So I let fall these mournful words of mine.
And if time with its breezy broom should pile them
Into a heap to burn without regret…
Just say this … that the golden grove fell silent,S
horn of its leaves, in pensive silhouette.
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