Приложение 2
Konstantin Simonov
Wait for me
to Valentina Serova
Wait for me, and I'll come back!
Wait with all you've got!
Wait, when dreary yellow rains
Tell you, you should not.
Wait when snow is falling fast,
Wait when summer's hot,
Wait when yesterdays are past,
Others are forgot.
Wait, when from that far-off place,
Letters don't arrive.
Wait, when those with whom you wait
Doubt if I'm alive.
Wait for me, and I'll come back!
Wait in patience yet
When they tell you off by heart
That you should forget.
Even when my dearest ones
Say that I am lost,
Even when my friends give up,
Sit and count the cost,
Drink a glass of bitter wine
To the fallen friend -
Wait! And do not drink with them!
Wait until the end!
Wait for me and I'll come back,
Dodging every fate!
"What a bit of luck!" they'll say,
Those thatwould not wait.
They will never understand
How amidst the strife,
By your waiting for me, dear,
You had saved my life.
Only you and I will know
How you got me through.
Simply - you knew how to wait -
No one else but you.
1941
http://www.simonov.co.uk/waitforme.htm
The Lieutenant
For three long months continues the bombardment.
The bloodstained Malakhov withstands it still.
The hoarse-voiced drum drives on the British redcoats.
Once more they throw themselves against the hill!
But by the far Pacific on Kamchatka
The fortress slumbers on in peace profound.
The lame lieutenant, garrison commander,
Pulls on his gloves and goes his daily round.
A grey old soldier, lazily saluting,
Shades with his sleeve his eyes against the sun;
The skinny goat belonging to the fortress
Is tethered with a rope beside the gun.
No news, no letters, no response to pleading -
They have forgotten, seven seas away,
That here upon the farthest point of Russia,
A company of men is in their pay.
But as he strained his eyes against the sunlight,
Far to the south across the sea, perhaps,
It seemed to the lieutenant they were coming -
There in the mist - he saw the shape of ships!
He seized the glass. Across the silent water,
Now green, now white with agitated foam,
In line ahead, the British ships were moving,
Advancing steadily towards his home.
What can have brought them here from far off Albion?
What do they want? A distant booming sound -
And suddenly, the sea below the bastion
Rose boiling with the impact of the round.
All afternoon, the guns fired on at random
And threatened soon to set the town aflame.
Then bearing a demand for their surrender,
Beneath a flag of truce, an envoy came.
The old lieutenant, feeling that his lameness
Might make the credit of his country fall,
Received the envoy haughtily and seated
Upon a bench beside the fortress wall.
What was there to defend? The rusty cannons,
Two dirty streets all overgrown with weeds,
The slant-roofed huts that served to house the soldiers,
A useless bit of land that no one needs!
But something told him he would not surrender.
He felt a chunk of earth beneath his hand.
He would not yield this place up to the sailor;
Perhaps forgotten, it was still his land!
The tattered weather-beaten flags still fluttered
Above the roof and up against the tree.
"Go tell your queen I shall not sign your paper!"
He answered the attacker from the sea.
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77431
Александр Твардовский (1910-1971), отрывок из главы "Гармонь"
When our soldier took the accordion,It was clear he knew his stuff,
As he ran his nimble fingers
Down the studs to start things off
Eyes half closed, he palyed a haunting
Melody, sad and forlorn,
From somewhere around the country
Near Smolensk, where he was born
And the ancient squeege-box, lonely
For its master dead and gone,
Warmed things up along the highway
Somewhere near the front-line zone
From their lorries, white with hoarfrost,
Soldiers poured, as to a fire.
Who was playing whose accordion
They could neither know nor care
Yes, forget - It's not the moment
To remember anyway -
Who's been killed and where he's buried,
Or whose turn will come next day
Who will live to tread the grasses
On this Earth in time to come,
Go home to his wife and family -
Where's his wife, and where's his home?
He didn’t come back from the battle
Now the world seems so strange, though it looks just the same:
Skies are blue as the iris petal,
Just the same are the forest, the river, the flame,
But he didn’t come back from the battle.
I don’t see who was right in the disputes we had,
I cannot understand who was better...
Yet I started to miss him as soon as this lad
Failed to come back alive from the battle.
With his gibberish talk he would wake me at dawn,
He would not let me sleep with his prattle;
His remarks would be wrong, he would slip in a song,
But he yesterday fell in the battle.
It’s not loneliness that I’m talking about;
We were two - and no one can reset it...
By the wind my campfire at once was put out
When he didn’t return from the battle.
To the troubles we have, our dead will respond,
They’ll protect our values and treasures,
Skies reflect in the forest as if in the pond
And the trees look as if painted azure.
Spring has just shaken off winter’s shackles. And I
Simply called him, forgetting the matter:
“Buddy, leave me a drag!” - but there is no reply,
He would never come back from the battle.
In the dug-out we had I would share with him
Time and space and a battered old kettle...
Now I own them alone. But I really seem
To have fallen myself in the battle.
http://samolit.com/books/3036/
'Fire flickers in wood burning stove', Alexey Surkov, Translated by Alec Vagapov
Fire flickers in wood burning stove
Drops of tar look like somebody cries
The accordion sings song of love,
It’s about your smile and your eyes.
In the fields under Moscow, the grass
Whispered calling your name in my ear
I would like you to hear for once
How my voice sounds and longs for you here..
You are currently far, far away.
Vast of snow is between you and me
It’s not easy to reach you. No way.
Whereas death is as close as can be.
Sing, accordion, in spite of the storm,
Bring me happiness from up above.
In the chilly dugout it’s warm
From my burning perpetual love.
http://eng--rus.ru/verses/62-war-poetry-in-english/202-fire-flickers-in-wood-burning-stove-alexey-surkov
THE COMMON GRAVES
They don’t put up crosses on communal graves,
And widows don’t come to shed tears;
But flowers are laid and eternal flames
Will never be quenched, it appears.
The earth that was shaking and heaving of late
With granite and marble is plated.
There isn’t a single separate fate,
All fates are in one integrated.
We see in the flame our burning tank,
A house on fire and smoulder,
The burning Smolensk and the burning Reichstag,
The burning heart of a soldier.
The tearful widows don’t visit the place,
To give and receive the blessing.
They don’t put up crosses on communal graves
But does it make less distressing?
http://samolit.com/books/3036/