Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. A Ballad of Fighting.

If thou’st found thyself in a strange land...Adapted from Alec Vagapov’s translation by Akbar Muhammad.

If thou’st found thyself in a strange land at night,

If thou sit’st on a barrel of powder —

Hold not back, keep not silent, call me with all might —

I will hear thee, my dear, holler louder.

Perhaps, thou li’st in a field with a ball in thy chest —

Know, I’m running to thee, treading lightly, and thou shouldst have patience.
We’ll go back where the grass and the air are salubrious and gracious,

Only pass not away, hold thou on, do thy best!

If thou’rt riding a horse, thou’lt get home, spreading wings —

Thy good stallion should bring thee around.

He’ll take thee to the places with life-giving springs,

And they’ll patch up thy wounds, make thee sound.

If thou’rt dragging thy feet, plodding, trudging all day,

Getting stuck in the mud, scrambling, treading on stones or in water,
Singed in flame, weather-beaten, lamentable, threadbare or wanted —

On all fours or on twos, but get home anyway!

Springing from the ice sheet, here so clean are the streams —

Splendid ones of the purest water.

Here the trees and the flowers are nobody’s things,

We’ll make them our own if we want to.

Now where art thou — hast locked up or taken a long roam?

What conjunctions and what intersections of paths art thou facing?
Art thou tired, hast gone off the track, find’st thy problems depressing?

Canst not thou really find the way back to thy home?

1974.

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