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Pavel Antokolsky
Lady Hamilton
1943
It was ones in the forest of Briansk in the night,
Where the screen told us a story of the foreign delight -
Of the women by seas with a clear bright face,
With her happiest life and her grievous ends.
Without her in the fight by a port Trafalgar,
Has been dying her lover - the brave admiral.
Only cold sea water, that blackened and swelled,
Was like knocking the sides of a ship: “Farewell!”
And in darkness, the ship’s guns were roaring, and
She was left, as a widow, on the far British land -
Such a beautiful lady with her mouth like blazed,
And she did not remember what was farther the rest.
In the old wood of Briansk, with old oaks above,
Soldiers heard in this night about alien love.
And they started to sing of the dears they left,
How said they ‘good by’ by the Christmas white drifts,
To recall, while a-puffing with cigarets, rolled,
That their families wait them to home at all,
That all light of their life is continued in that…
And they wanted to sing songs more gentle and sad,
And to sit one by one, t‘ be not sleeping or lain,
And to look at screens’ glimpses again and again…
And to sing all their songs, all beloved their stuff,
‘Cause a patriot’s war is a business of love.
Tho’ you’ve been cut from dears by many a year,
Have been tied, not shaved, early has gray your hair,
Have been blazed by a fire and covered by sand…
He is thrice in a love - who defends Motherland.
Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, December, 2000
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