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Vladimir Vysotsky

THE BALLAD ABOUT LOVE

When all the waters of all Nature's floods

Returned into the borders of the shores,

We saw a figure that was dressed in suds

It was Great Love that clambered to the earth –

And she resolved her spirit into buds:

From timid violet to proud rose.

And people who get crazy day by day

Inhale the air of this love bouquet,

They think that they just live for right intention,

They gather flowers and they make a pause…

And their breath becomes just one for both

With a similar congenial respiration.

If you dote and if your soul's like a dove,

Sing the love ballads, sing the songs I give,

I smell the flowers, and it means I love!

I can love, and it means that I can live!

There will be many wanderings and roams

In lands of Love, in country of affections.

The knights of Love will Pay for her sweet loams

With many difficult and frightful actions,

With partings and with leavings of the homes,

With sleepless nights and wanton agitations.

But those who dote are ready to disburse,

They sigh the compact to reverse the Earth,

And their life means nothing but Great Love.

They can't allow to muffle tender sound

Which they can hear everywhere around,

Which clinks for them, them only from above.

If you dote and if your soul's like a dove,

Sing love the ballads, sing the songs I give,

I smell the flowers, and it means I love!

I can love, and it means that I can live!

So many people sunk in the Sea of Lovers

Or poisoned with Love potion or sweet bane.

We cannot find them in romantic bowers

In any city, town, street or lane.

We can just cry above the lethal covers

And put the candles, and smoke loving Jane.

And their souls are wondering in flowers,

And their souls are different from ours.

They meet each other in the flower-yard

And their Love builds high and perfect towers,

The towers in the City of Great Lovers,

The city situated in the Heart.

Flowers' breathing makes us almost drunk,

Yet this fragrance helps us to believe.

Want to live? Then, take the flower-trunk:

You will smell and love, and you will live!

(Translated by Lyudmila ZAKHARENKO, 2003)

Chapter III