Mikhail Svetlov
I’ve never been even once in a bar-room...

I’ve never been even once in a bar-room,
I’ve never drunk whisky neat with sailors,
I’ll never, I guess, on a horse go charging
Across the desert steppes of Arabia.

I'm not cut out for hauling in canvas,
For waving an oar, braving stormy weather.
She loves a young salt, does the Atlantic,
With crooked legs and lungs of leather...

Sheer walls of ice will squeeze our timbers,
We’ll walk across a freezing wilderness —
That is, if Amundsen gives me a glimpse of
The Pole, albeit from a distance.

It may be a long time before I travel,
But with what delight when a storm is brewing,
Sensing the Ukraine in my marrow,
I’d spend a tropical night on duty.

I’ve never seen nights like that in Chernigov
Where copses drowse at the height of summer,
Nights when the stars their way are feeling
And on the moon in darkness stumble...

At twelve they would close the gates upon us.
Through crowds I’d go racing down the Fontanka,*
Fancying still: it lay round the corner,
That waterhole where wild tigers gather.

___
*Fontanka, the embankment of the Fontanka river in Leningrad.

Translated by Peter Tempest