‘It’s time my friends, it’s time. We long for peace’ by Alexander Pushkin

It’s time my friends, it’s time. We long for peace

of heart. But days chase days and every hour

gone by means one less hour to come. We live

our lives, dear friend, in hope of life, then die.

There is no happiness on earth, but peace

exists, and freedom too. Tired slave, I dream

of flight, of taking refuge in some far-

off home of quiet joys and honest labour.

 

by Александр Сергеевич Пушкин (Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin)

a.k.a. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin

(1834)

translated by Robert Chandler

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‘And You, My Friends…’ by Anna Akhmatova

And you, my friends who have been called away,

I have been spared to mourn for you and weep,

Not as a frozen willow over your memory,

But to cry to the world the names of those who sleep.

What names are those!

I slam shut the calender,

Down on your knees all!

Blood of my heart,

The people of Leningrad march out in even rows,

The living, the dead: fame can’t tell them apart.

 

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)

(1942)

from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)

translation by D. M. Thomas