Setting sun red and heavy is casting long shades
Of the walls of the castle where no guard is seen;
Just two arhers are playing the game of old days
Throwing coins on the stone floor and list'ning them ring.
Thus the day is but done.

'Midst the walls all a-crumbling the two of them then
Lay asleep with their uniform cloaks over heads.
Not the first day they finish, not first night they spend
Over bottle of brew which is bann'd to the lads,
As the Holy Day is.

But the night will be short, and as morning begins
They resume their guard as it goes from the time;
And they'll drink up to shrink from the bottle they'll bring,
Their unwilling to live drowning down in the wine;
They don't heed to their light.

Now the ages have past, and in silence I walk
'Midst the tow'rs all a-broken and burned to the foot,
In the trees grown between ancient bastions and walls,
And the shredders of glass hissing under my foot,
Now that ages have past.

{1993}
Translation (c) Stepan M. Pechkin 1993
Last-modified: Fri, 02 May 1997 13:23:42 GMT