Barges of Mullets (Шаланды Полные Кефали)

 

Barges of mullets to Odessa

Kostya each day kept bringing in.

All the sailors would promptly stand up

When he entered the brewery.

The sea gets dark beyond the boulevard

The chestnut blooms over the streets

When Konstantin takes out his guitar

And, quietly, begins to sing.

 

REFRAIN:

I can’t speak for the entire Odessa

Odessa has very many shores

But the Moldovanka and Peresip

All adore young Kostya the sailor!

 

Fishing girl Sonya once, in May,

Dragging her boat up to the shore

Said to him, “I heard you are famous,

But I’ve never seen you before.”

Kostya opened a cigarette case

And answered with a chilly air,

“You are a silly little woman,

But here’s what you don’t understand:”

 

REFRAIN

 

The fountain specked with buds of cherry

French boulevard fully in bloom

“I heard our Kostya’s getting married!”

The port men started shouting soon.

About this news, the whole week through

The fishermen went back and forth

And at the wedding, all the sailors

Stomped squeaking clogs across the floor.

 

REFRAIN

 

I can’t speak for the entire Odessa

Odessa has very many shores

Night and day, danced the entire Peresip

At the wedding of the young sailor!

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Dark Night (Темная Ночь)

 

It’s a dark night.

Only bullets whistling in the steppe

Only the wind pounding in the wires

Dimly, stars start to shimmer.

On this dark night

You, my loved one, I know, do not sleep

At the bedside of our little child

You wipe a silent tear.

 

Oh how I love the depth of your gentle eyes!

Oh how I want to cling to them now with my lips,

You and me, love, separated by this dark night

And a troubling, ghastly black steppe

Spans the distance between us.

 

But I believe

In you, in my love and my friend.

It’s this faith that on this dark night

Keeps me safe from the bullets.

I am happy. I am calm in this battle of death

I know you’ll welcome me back with love

No matter what happens.

 

No fear of death; She is always present in the steppe

Circling my head, with her power, she screams, she beckons.

You wait for me. At our child’s bedside you do not sleep.

And because of this I know, with me, nothing tragic will happen.

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Roshin’s Ode (Романс Рощина)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdfvd934y2I

 

If I’d met you earlier in time,

Young one. Gentle one.

In those years that long ago passed by,

There’d be more I’d have done.

 

Now my head has turned white.

Immune to my plight.

Why is it that I met you, love, only now?

 

In my circle of acquaintances

I’ve lost track of the years gone

But then you came and reminded me,

Youthful one. Slender one.

 

Of just one thing I think,

Regretting that spring.

That had passed so irreversibly without you.

 

Dear, oh how these white wisps cower

When brought near your silk strands’ light

Know that you seem even younger

When I am by your side.

 

So we won’t pass our dates.

We have different fates.

You have become my last love. My pain.

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