* * *
Sleep, my darling! Darkness flows
So swiftly in July.
Could I rock you as you doze,
I’d sing a lullaby!
What to whisper in your ear
As shadows intertwine?
May the last «Good night!» you hear
Always, dear, be mine!
Nothing shall your slumbers mar:
I’ll watch the vale below,
Rouse the lark, blow out, each star
And set the East aglow.
Shadows flee. New day is dawning,
Golden and divine.
Always may the first «Good morning!»
That you hear be mine!
CRANES
I sometimes think that riders brave,
Who met their death in bloody fight,
Were never buried in a grave
But rose as cranes with plumage white.
And ever since until this day
They pass high overhead and call.
Is that not why we often gaze
In solemn silence at them all?
In far-off foreign lands I see
The cranes in evening’s dying glow
Fly quickly past in company,
As men on horseback used to go.
And, as they fly far out of reach,
I hear them calling someone’s name.
Is that why sounds in Avar speech
Recall the clamour of a crane?
Across the weary sky they race,
Who friend and kinsman used to be,
And in their ranks I see a space—
Perhaps they’re keeping it for me?
One day I’ll join the flock of cranes,
With them I shall go winging, by
And you, who here on earth remain,
Will hear my loud and strident cry.
DEATH OF THE POPLAR
You, poplar, were our country’s pride,
You seemed eternal as a rock.
But now your branches limply drop,
Like limbs fast withering, at your side.
You were a venerable tree
And generously granted shade.
So tell us what calamity
Your century-old strength decayed?
With your far-reaching leafy hood
You were a handsome sight. Uncowed,
A hundred blizzards you withstood
And never feared a thunder cloud.