Eduard Bagritsky
The Watermelon

The fresh wind is straining and, getting more bold,
It stirs up the Azov Sea’s trough.
Our melons we’ve stowed high and tight in the hold.
Watermelons are stacked on the wharf.

On watch there’s no grog, though the false-morning sky
Is cold and so dreary you yawn.
For th'ree days and nights with the wind we shall fly,
We set all our sails at the dawn.

The great breakers burst into long beards of white
And wind tears the spray-heads apart.
I choose a fine melon, rind tambourine-tight,
And carve on its surface a heart...

The sun of the wilderness sinks in the brine,
The waves push the moon up at dark.
The wind’s getting strong.
How it blows!
Hear it whine!
Look out for your sails, little bark!

A flock of white sheep stampede to the fold,
While melons are shifting down there in the hold,
Like a bo’sun the storm-wind with two fingers pipes
And clouds pile up high in their flight.
The rudder is kicking, the groaning hull gripes,
But the reefs on the mainsail are tight.

Through combers we’re plunging,
Through scud, cold and grey,
Through spindrift and foam we are lunging.
The rigging is howling.
The ship loses way,
The wind through ripped canvas is growling.

We’re caught in a madding merry-go-round,
Tall waves at the fair-ground are barking.
The sand bank is near,
We’re running aground,
For us there’ll be no more embarking!

The shaggy white goats stampede to the fold,
While melons are shifting down there in the hold.

I still have not finished my very last song.
But death’s breathing cold on my neck.
A gambler and wastrel, my life was all wrong,
I'll get my deserts in this wreck.

The rudder has gone and my life I can’t save.
The hull’s sprung a leak—it’s a watery grave.

No man sees the sun of the wilderness rise
To temper the cold air once more.
Though no one again on the bark shall set eyes,
A melon is drifting to shore.

Great breakers have burst into long beads of white —
A bright school of mackerel is playing.
At the mouth of the river the swell is but slight
Where the melon is drifting and swaying.

Now done is the journey on which it was sent,
Subsided the wind and the swell.
The lass, the young Cossack, for whom it was meant
Has the melon and my heart as well...

She never will know that in deep seas I rest,
And that she holds the heart that once beat in my breast!..

Translated by Tom Botting