How should I gaze this present day, how should I breathe the air
As it sticks and feels like lead before thunder?
What should I sing about today, what would I hear there?
Wise birds sing, although they come from tales of wonder.

The Sirin bird eyes me cheerfully grinning wide,
Bringing joy as she calls from her nest;
But the dark Alkonost on the other side
Blights the soul with regret and distress.

Just as seven strings in tune
Ring in turn familiarly,
It’s the bird called Gamayun
That’s bringing hope to me.

In the blue skies where the bell towers are piercing holes
There’s a copper bell; what is that it tolls?
Is it happiness or is it misery?
Russian domes are always covered in the purest gold
So the Lord sees them more frequently.

So I stand as if before an endless riddle now,
Before a land that’s great and full of marvels too;
For it’s salty and it’s sweet, it’s tangy, bitter, sour,
And it’s malty, pure as water, clear and blue.

Through thick, rusty mud horses are lumbering;
Though they sink in the dirt stirrup-deep
They bear me through this land that is slumbering,
That’s dissolved and grown puffy from sleep.

Just as seven plump full moons
Light my way so I can see,
It’s the bird called Gamayun
That’s bringing hope to me.

My soul’s battered by loss that follows loss of old;
My soul’s scoured, tumbled and rolled;
If this shred wears so thin that it bleeds
I will patch it up with scraps made of the purest gold
So the Lord sees it more frequently.