Vladimir Mayakovsky
Left march

For the Red Marines: 1918

Rally the ranks into a march!
Now’s no time to quibble or browse,
Silence, you orators!
You
have the floor,
Comrade Mauser.
Enough of living by laws
that Adam and Eve have left.
Hustle old history’s horse.
Left!
Left!
Left!

Ahoy, blue jackets!
Cleave skywards!
Beyond the oceans!
Unless
your battleships on the roads
blunted their keels’ fighting keenness!
Baring the teeth of his crown,
let the lion of Britain whine,¹ gale-heft.
The Commune can never go down.
Left!
Left!
Left!

There —
beyond sorrow’s seas,
sunlit lands uncharted.
Beyond hunger,
beyond plague’s dark peaks,
marching of millions imprint!
Let armies of hirelings ambush us,
streaming cold steel through every rift,
L’Entente can’t conquer the Russias,
Left!
Left!
Left!

Does the eye of the eagle fade?
Shall we stare back to the old?
Proletarian fingers
grip tighter
the throat of the world:
Chests out! Shoulders straight!
Stick to the sky red flags adrift!
Who’s marching there with the right?
Left!
Left!
Left!

____
1. I would emphasize this was written at the time when British (and other) interventionary armies were attacking the young Soviet State. Past history now! H. M.

Translated by Herbert Marshall