Spring has assaulted every boulder —
The topsoil bursts with sprouting seeds,
Only my son's steadfast toy soldier
Is doomed to his heroic deeds.
A joyless master somehow happened
To join this set of tiny parts...
Ask the toy soldier: Are you happy?
And he will fire at your heart.
As fashions, moods and hopes are swinging
With every year that comes and goes,
People are laughing, crying, singing,
While he keeps waiting for his foes.
His muscles tense, his senses heightened:
He'll fight before he's torn apart!..
Ask the toy soldier: Are you frightened?
And he will fire at your heart.
He sees our buzzing busy static
As just a stretch from harm to harm.
His sorry little automatic
Has merged forever with his arm.
No peace for my unwilling buffer
And catalyst of coming hurt...
Ask the toy soldier: Do you suffer?
And he will fire at your heart.
Земля гудит под соловьями,
Под майским нежится дождём,
А вот солдатик оловянный
На вечный подвиг осуждён.
Его, наверно, грустный мастер
Пустил по свету, невзлюбя.
Спроси солдатика: «Ты счастлив?»
И он прицелится в тебя.
И в смене праздников и буден,
В нестройном шествии веков
Смеются люди, плачут люди,
А он всё ждёт своих врагов.
Он ждёт упрямо и пристрастно,
когда накинутся, трубя…
Спроси его: «Тебе не страшно?»
И он прицелится в тебя.
Живёт солдатик оловянный
Предвестником больших разлук,
И автоматик окаянный
Боится выпустить из рук.
Живёт защитник мой, невольно
Сигнал к сраженью торопя.
Спроси его: «Тебе не больно?»
И он прицелится в тебя.
«I have come to please you, dear, / To impart the sun be ardent, / Tell you that its glares quiver / On the leaves of the green garden; / Come to tell you: in the forest / Branches talk with animation, / Every early bird is earnest, — / Woods are full of a spring passion. /...»
«Do not elude — I will not sue / For your heart pain, nor secret worrying, / I want to plunge myself in mourning / And to repeat that I love you. / / It is suffice for me to fly / To you like waves run by the water — / To kiss cold granite I have gotten, / To kiss and after ...»
«The sounds have calmed down in the wood, / Soon the sunrays will stop be shining either... / My beautiful friend, oh, how much I would / Be glad to see you coming to me hither! Oh, how soon the charming childish word / To frightfulness will turn intense impatience? / Oh, how soon, li...»
«Wake her not out of sleep at the dawn, / At the dawn she is sleeping too sweet. / On her breast there is breath of the morn, / On the cheeks dimples are blooming with it. Hot is this sound sleep of the maid’s / Yet she now is foreign to trouble; / By the shoulders are running h...»