Михаил Светлов ИТАЛЬЯНЕЦ Черный крест на груди итальянца,...

Mikhail Svetlov

ITALIAN

Black cross on the chest of an Italian,
No thread, no pattern, no gloss, -
Kept by a poor family
And worn by the only son ...

Young native of Naples!
What did you leave in Russia on the field?
Why couldn't you be happy
Over the famous native bay?

I, who killed you near Mozdok,
So dreamed of a distant volcano!
How I dreamed on the Volga freedom
Take a ride in a gondola just once!

But I didn't come with a gun
Take away the Italian summer
But my bullets did not whistle
Over the sacred land of Raphael!

Here I shot! Here where I was born
Where he was proud of himself and his friends
Where are the epics about our peoples
They never sound in translations.

Is the middle Don bend
Studied by foreign scientists?
Our land - Russia, Race -
Did you plow and sow?

Not! You were brought in a train
To take over distant colonies
So that the cross from the casket from the family
It grew to the size of a grave ...

I will not let my homeland take out
For the vastness of foreign seas!
I shoot - and there is no justice
Fairer than my bullet!

You have never lived or been here! ..
But scattered in snowy fields
Italian blue sky
Glazed in dead eyes ...

1943