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.
«Us few. Perhaps us three — just — / Blazing and infernal from Donets / Stuck beneath gray racing crusts / Of rain, clouds and Soviets / Of soldiers, poems and debates / About transportation and the arts. We were people. Now we’re epochs. / As time overtakes us in a rush of coaches...»
«The slanting pictures fly in like streaming rain / From the roadway where candles are snuffed, / But on their hooks and walls I’m unable to train them / To fall into line with feet and rhymes. But what if the universe were just — a mask? / Such that in certain latitudes, / Winter caus...»
«You are engrossed in ledgers, / In plans and tragic policies, / You who once sang to the brink / The Flying Dutchman with your verse. A storm swelled at your canvas tent / And roared, intensifying, / Until you, wing d still, descended / At last to walk beside me again. And now you slog...»
«For Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Zalshupina Why must life put up with such eccentrics / As every day for a small token / It passes for revue over the abyss / Hurrying from Potsdam as the sun goes down? He passes out roses and mignonettes / From a basket, at the cornerstone that he rents, / Whe...»