Vladimir Vysotsky. It’s the most wonderful... (Commentary.)

Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. Life Is Twisted.

Commentary to the poem “It’s the most wonderful...”

This poem calls to mind the words from the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians: “...things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him.”

And here also comes to mind Rudyard Kipling’s ode “When Earth’s last picture is painted...”:

When Earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it — lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.

And those that were good shall be happy; they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets’ hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!

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