There are faces like sumptuous portals, Where greatness seems to dwell in every trifle

There are faces like sumptuous portals,
Where greatness seems to dwell in every trifle.
There are faces, the likenesses of wretched hovels,
Where liver is boiled and tripe lies steeping.
Others, cold and dead faces,
Are shut behind bars, like a dungeon.
Others are like towers in which for long
No one has lived or looked out of the window.
But a little hut I knew once,
It was plain and not wealthy,
Yet from its little window upon me
There streamed the breath of a spring day.
Truly the world is both great and wonderful!
There are faces, the likenesses of exultant songs.
From these notes, shining like the sun,
The song of the heavenly heights is composed.

Literal translation

Nikolai Zabolotsky. On the Beauty of Human Faces

painting by Fedot Sychkov, "Two Weavers"