Vadim Shefner

She’d wept and stood, like stoned, for an instant, 
Her warrior, sitting on his charger, black,
Quietly said, “Tho’ road’s hard and distant, --
Remember me – I’ll, all the same, come back.”

Avoiding heavy wounds, defeats and woe,
His fate lead him along his fire way…  
But war is war – an arrow did throw
Him down on the great victorious day.

Among his comrades – their war leader own –
He met his death without faith in it,   
And some one chiseled on a gray gravestone
The words he’d whispered in his deathly fit.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

The old-old grave is decked by thistle over,
Deals of the former knights are left behind,
The girl had, first, forgot the perished warrior,
Then she grew old and finally she died.

But in the one of dazzling evening instants,
The sacred words, cut on gray stone, wake --   
They burn, they cry: “Tho’ road’s is hard and distant, – 
Remember me – I’ll, all the same, come back!”


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, April, 2001