Mikhail Svetlov
A Song

To N. Aseyev*

Night stands guard by blown-up bridges,
Horse has lost its way in mistiness.
Dying on the damp earth lies a laddie
Who for comfort could not care less.

Warm caressing weather freezes quickly
On the laddie’s parched and lifeless lips
And the gleaming stars of 1919
Fade from the eyes that will forever sleep.

He will yet let out a whisper and a groan
Faintly stir and then will pass away;
Infantry in tunics, soiled and faded,
Will silently come up to him by day.

The defender of the Revolution
They will bury on a grassy hill
So that Comrade Lenin in the Kremlin
Can no longer count on him for help.

So that in the dales of apple blossom
His young bride would all alone tread...
By the candlelight our girls write letters
Knowing not their addresses are dead.

___
*Nikolai Aseyev (1889-1963), a leading Soviet poet.

Translated by Pavel Losev