Be it fortune or misfortune
Trust the simple truth:
Never go back home in search of
our departed youth.
Cindered ruins have been cleared
And the place restored.
Yet, we won't discover there
What we are looking for.
Trips to yesteryear, oh brother,
I would forbid to all.
I am pleading: do not bother,
Don't stir up my soul.
For I will rush away from here —
And who will bring me back?
On my sled, back to that year —
Chasing old snow tracks.
I will find my way to where
In nineteen forty-five
Mom — so young! — is standing near
Father, still alive.
По несчастью или к счастью,
Истина проста:
Никогда не возвращайся
В прежние места.
Даже если пепелище
Выглядит вполне,
Не найти того, что ищем,
Ни тебе, ни мне.
Путешествие в обратно
Я бы запретил,
Я прошу тебя, как брата,
Душу не мути.
А не то рвану по следу —
Кто меня вернет? —
И на валенках уеду
В сорок пятый год.
В сорок пятом угадаю,
Там, где — боже мой! —
Будет мама молодая
И отец живой.
«From moistened clay by God was I created, / But never freed from earthly guise. / With peaks and valleys I am federated / E'en as myself, the earth I prize. When gazing on the distant roads I ponder, / Methinks that feeling I can grasp / How wheels thereon, and stones and feet that wander...»
«(i.) Thou earth with guile and irksome woe, / Art yet a mother unto me! / Mute mother mine, I love thee so, / Thou earth with guile and irksome woe! / How sweet in earth's embrace to be, / Nestling to her when May's aglow! / Thou earth with guile and irksome woe, / Art yet a mother un...»
«In this hour when darkened skies arc by the awful thunder rent, / In this hour when shakes our dwelling to its very fundament, / In this hour when every hope and every love are in despair, / When the mightiest in spirit purse the brow in restless care / In this hour your hearts shall rouse ...»
«Evil dragon, 'mid the zenith hotly burning, / Thou, who all about thee, fiery threads art turning, / With a stifling hotness parching all the valley, — / Evil dragon, lo, too speedy is thy rapture / O'er thy victory; for, compassing thy capture, / From my dark, deep quiver, poisoned barb...»