NIKOLAY GREBNEV: "My Poem, Yet, Wasn't By Me Bred"

"My Poem, Yet, Wasn't By Me Bred"

(From Rasul Gamzatov)
My poem, yet, wasn’t by me bred – 
The different things chanced there, in whole:
Once, by a coward it was scraped,
Once, by a hero it was mold.

Once, by a lover it was praised,
Once, by a liar – with lie sated,
But I was dreaming of the lines,
Writ, as they say, by Hand of Deity. 


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, June, 2001