Elderberry fills the whole garden! Elderberry is green, green, Greener, than mold on the vat! Greener, than summer at the start! Elderberry - till the end of days! Elderberry greener than my eyes! And after - through the night - with the fire Of Rostov! - it is red in the eyes From the trill of bubbly elderberry. Redder than measles on one's own body In all your times, azure, Measles that scatters and pours Of elderberry - till winter, till winter! That in small berry sweeter Than poison, what are dissolved paints! Of red cotton, sealing wax and Hades Mix, a shimmer of corral beads, And a taste of baked blood. Elderberry has been killed, has been killed! Elderberry the whole hall filled With blood of young and pure, With blood of branches of fire - With the blood most merry - With blood of heart of you and me... And later - grain's waterfall will be, And later - black is elderberry: With plum something, sticky something. Over the gate, moaning with violin, Near the house, which is empty, Is lonely bush of elderberry. Elderberry, without mind, without mind, Of your beads, elderberry, am I! Steppe - to Mongol, Caucasus - to Georgian will go, To me - elderberry bush under window Give. Instead of Arts Palace, only Give this bush of elderberry. Newcomers in my country - From the berry - elderberry, My ruddy childhood thirst, From the tree and from the word: Elderberry (till this day - at nights...), Poison - sucked in by the eyes... Elderberry is red, is red! Elderberry - took the whole land In its paws. In power, my childhood all. Something like passion criminal, Elderberry, between you and me Century's disease - elderberry I would call... By Marina Tsvetayeva Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat
