🚧Of what do the nightingales sing?
Pyatro GlebkaВедах беларускіх
Translated by
OF WHAT DO THE NIGHTINGALES SING?
Of what do the nightingales sing? I try to translate them in words, When the gay green groves in the spring, And my bitter thoughts, on sad wind, Are warmed by the warbling of birds.
Of my dear native parts I dream, And my distant boyhood days, The oak groves, the maples, the stream, And the sky with its coralline rim Lightly clouded with whitish haze.
From war’s ruins, one moment, returns The leaves’cautious rustling laugh, The long train of trucks road-dust churns, And beneath the cool welcoming birch Rests the traveller with bag and staff.
These pictures of my native land — There’s nothing can wipe them away. Since youth we went hand in hand Towards the bright future we planned, But drew nearer to death each day.
And all, from the flowers of the mead, To the red grains of sand in the soil, With care in my heart I keep — But I can’t remember, indeed, Your smile, my darling girl.
that well-loved smile I divine ^the nightingale’s song a trace — /*ere’s a lyric touch of young pine, he murmuring spring a sign, And of rowan’s sad rustling grace.
pYATRO GLEBKA
..even imagine, sometimes, And I from disaster saved, ™ chall meet, not divide, Againh l waik then side by side #S^^*” • curelv of that, in the grove, Sn as the twilight is here, Yhatthe nightingales sing above, And the bitter grief of my love With goodly hope try to cheer.
Translated b__y Wa__l__ter May__.