Mikhail Lermontov - Borodino
https://t.me/stihotvorTell me, Uncle, it was not casually
That Moscow, burned by the fires,
Was given up to the French?
For there were battles indeed,
Oh, yes, people say they were really something!
Not in vain will all Russia remember
The day of Borodino!
-- Yes, there were folks in our time,
Not like the chaps we see today:
They were heroes, not like you!
Their luck turned rotten:
Very few returned from the field ...
And if it had not been God's will,
We would not have given up Moscow!
We withdrew for a while in silence,
Anxiously awaiting the battle,
And the old guard grumbled:
"What? Us go to our wintertime lodgings?
Will our commanders not dare
To rip up the foreign uniforms
With their Russian bayonets?"
And then we found a wide field,
Where one could walk as far as he pleased!
We built a redoubt there.
We'll keep our ears open!
No sooner had the dawn shone light on the cannons
And the blue tops of the trees,
The French stood before us!
I loaded the gun tightly
And thought, I'll play host to our friends!
Just wait, brother-Messieurs!
Why try to dodge it? Let's have a battle;
We’re ready to hit them like a wall,
We’re going to lay down our lives
For our motherland!
We were in a crossfire for two days.
What’s the sense in that?
We awaited the third day.
We started hearing people yell from everywhere:
“It’s time to get the canister!”
And then upon the field of the ferocious battle
Night’s shadow fell.
I lay down to sleep next to the mast,
And we could hear up until dawn
How gaily the French carried on.
But our open camp was quiet:
One cleaned his battered bearskin cap,
Another sharpened their bayonets, muttering angrily
And biting his long whiskers.
And then the heavens finally brightened,
Everyone suddenly began to stir noisily,
Rows and rows of soldiers went by.
Our colonel was born a hero:
He was a servant to the Tsar, a father to the soldiers …
But, what a pity: he was slain with a sword.
He sleeps in the damp ground now.
And he said, eyes flashing,
“Men! isn’t Moscow behind us?
Let’s meet our deaths near Moscow,
As did our brothers!”
And we resolved to die,
And we kept our oath
Throughout the battle of Borodino.
Well it was quite a day! Through the flying smoke
The Frenchmen moved, like clouds,
All upon our very own redoubt!
Lancers with their shining medals,
Dragoons with horsetails on their hats,
Everyone flashed before us,
Everyone was there.
You’ll never see battles like that!
Banners floated like shadows
And fire flickered amid the smoke;
The swords rang, the buckshot howled,
The arms of the fighters grew tired,
And the mountain of bodies was so wide
That the cannons could not shoot through it.
The enemy learned a fair amount that day
About what real Russian combat means,
Our hand-to-hand combat!
The earth shook, just like our chests;
Horses and people mixed together in a bunch,
And thousands of volleys from the guns
Merged into a drawn-out howl …
Then dusk came. Everyone was ready
To start the battle again in the morning
And fight until the bitter end …
Then the drums sounded
And the fiends retreated.
Then we counted the wounded,
We counted our comrades.
Yes, there were people in our time
Who were powerful and spirited:
They were heroes, not like you!
Their luck turned rotten:
Very few returned from the field ...
And if it had not been God's will,
We would not have given up Moscow!