Nikolay Rubtsov
My peaceful homeland

Peaceful you are, native land of mine!
River, songbirds, willow trees...
My mother’s tomb is not far away,
Left here since my childhood years.

— Where is the graveyard? Can someone help?
I could not find it myself. —
People then quietly answered me:
— It's on that side of the shelf.

People have quietly answered me,
Quietly wagon raw passed.
Dome of the old church's tenement
Got overgrown by bright grass.

Where I once swam after river-fish,
Hay now they pull into barns:
Right in between this my river's curves
Channel was dug since those times.

Mud is what’s left and some marshy land,
Where I so loved once to swim,
Peaceful you are, native land of mine,
I won’t forget one small thing.

School fence was built all anew, I see
But the green vastness still there,
Like some odd crow I'll come sit on it
Climb it the same way we were!

Old wooden school!... I will have to leave,
But now I know it for sure,
That misty river will follow me,
I won't escape its allure.

With every hut, every stormy cloud,
Lightning and rain on my path,
More and more strengthens our burning bound,
Fatal bound — bound to the death.

Translated by unknown author