Konstantin Simonov
Three Poems

To the memory ol Boris Gorbatov

1.

My dear friend is deceased — I am stunned with the grief.
And what am I to do, now my dear friend is gone?
Never thought, never dreamed and would never believe
That without my dear friend I would have to live on.
I was gone, when they took him away on a pall,
And the funeral rites were performed without me.
And when now I’ll return, there’ll be nothing at all:
There’ll be nothing to hear, there’ll be nothing to see.
When I go to his home, he’ll no longer be there.
There’s the street and the house, and the very same door,
And the plate with his name on the door, as before.
There’s the rack that still carries his hat and his cane
And the study where he over books used to pore.
There is everything still — but no longer the same,
Because then he was here, whereas now, he’s no more!
What before were the words to each other we spoke?
“Let us sit down and talk, sing a song, have a smoke,”
We would say: “I would like you to go through this book,”
Or: “Come over tomorrow, and we’ll have a look.”
But now I’m to live with the fact that he’s dead
And get used to pronouncing the words: “He once said.”
He had said, he had helped, he had followed along,
And to cheer me, he promised that he would live long.
In my mind I still see the dear features I knew,
But no more, as before, can I say to him, “You”.
But they say, since one’s dead that’s the way it must be —
I’ll no longer say “you”, I shall have to say “he”.
And instead of “I love you”, “I loved you” must say,
Not “I have a good friend”, but “I had one, one day”.
Is this so? I’m not sure, for all wrong it appears.
When a star has gone out, for a thousand more years
People here on the Earth see the light of that star.
You are warmer and brighter by far than a star,
And a short time will pass till in coffin I lie,
So for me you will shine till the day that I die.

2.

Death struck swift, and now u seems he’s sleeping,
Lying pale, and nobody’s today,
And the guard of honour four are keeping,
Four whose youth has somehow slipped away.
Four, for whom there is no heaven or hell,
See the fifth one off, their ranks deplete,
Bid their friend an ultimate farewell,
Knowing that they nevermore shall meet.
Eyes with steadfast resolution staring,
We shall save him yet, they seem to say.
As if on their shoulders they are bearing
A friend, severely wounded in the fray.

3.

Friendship, true, with time does not diminish,
Clutches not at clouds up in the blue;
It just tumbles, when it nears its finish,
With a rumble, just as oak-trees do.
While alive, no wind can ever bend it,
Only death of one of them will end it.

Translated by Eugene Felgenhauer