Ауру жүрек ақырын соғады жай

Все слабее и все глуше сердца бой

Ever weaker and duller beats my heart

 Lying compressed in my ailing breast.

 Every now and then with fright it will start.

 By day and by night it knows no rest.

Disease has banished by carefree ways,

Dire sorrow oppresses my ailing mind.

Repulsed, from the world I avert my gaze,

Nothing but vanity in it I find.

My spirit craves for the long-dead past.

Accursed be the present this day and hence.

Now for calm and for quiet my spirit thirsts,

Now plunges itself into new torments.

Now, full of despair, I give vent to tears,

Obsessed with my ailments all day long,

Now quench my tears for fear of men’s sneers

And pretend to be haughty, nonchalant, strong.

Ever weaker and duller beats my heart.

Concealing its woes, into gloom it retreats.

Now, glowing, a sudden tattoo it starts,

Now, deadening down, it hardly beats.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg