Kids of the Script

дерзнули мы с Романом Землянским перевести на английский прекрасную песню  Владимира Семеновича Высоцкого "Баллада о борьбе"


Amid guttering candles and prayers at nights,
Amid spoils of war and bonefires of peace
There lived kids of the script unaware of the fights
Suffering from their wee cataclysms.

   Kids are always annoyed
   By their age and their days
   And we fought to the bone,
   To mortal offence
   But mended were cloaks
   By our mothers on time
   We devoured our books
   Almost losing our mind.

Locks covered our forheads of sweat
Of those words so anxiously sweet
Tasting battles, we lost our heads
As we read those old scatterred scripts.

   We were trying to get 
   Unaware of the fights
   Taking howling of wolves
   For bold battle cries
   A riddle of order,
   Point of attacks,
   Marking the border
   And chariot clangs.

Boiling cauldrons of fights of the past
Gave some food to the minds of the kids.
In our plays  our foes always got parts
Of traitors and cowards and thieves.

   Villian steps
   May never get cold
   Our ladies beloved
   We vowed to adore
   Everloving our close
   Evercalming our friends
   For parts of the heroes
   We proclaimed ourselves.

But one cannot escape in dreams once and for all.
Games end swiftly as pain takes its toll.
Try to loosen the hands of your fallen allies
To take weapons of battles and fights.

   Experience holding
   Warm swords in despair,
   Donning the armour
   How much do you dare -
   Realize are you coward
   Or chosen by fate
   And feel the taste of true fight
   Not too late.

When your kin comes undone  to last heir
After first loss you’ll howl in  grief
And your soul will get  trembling and bare
For he’s just slain, but  you do still  live.

   You will distinguish
   While  loosing your breath
   That a grin of a helm
   Is the grin of Old Death.
   Look at harsh faces
   Of Evil and Lies
   As crows and tombstones
   Are all left behind.

If you always neglected a fight
With buthchers and traitors in pride.
If meat roasted on fire you never did taste
Then your life was a waste, was a waste!

If you followed your fate holding sword of your kin
And shed many bittering tears of despair
Then the stories that formed you,
With your kids be the stories to share!