Hours

All hours once seemed the same to me. 

But it appears 

   that they can be 

Like tiny droplets and like seas, 

Like mighty mountains and like fleas.

Some ages leave no trace behind 

By which to be recalled to mind; 

Millenniums— 

          Lilliputian midgets...

There also are 

          grand, glorious minutes— 

By them alone an age is prized 

And men—by them immortalised, 

In which we find 

                    full compensation 

For empty days, for all frustration.

These I knew too, when I drank love’s fill.

Each second I remember still; 

Worlds in themselves, they will extend 

Throughout my life until its end!

That great moment will ever last 

When Lenin said: "The die is cast”?

    Yes, 

          Lenin’s time spreads ever wider 

          Across our life—no sunlight brighter.

  

Thus in all things. 

 We measure time 

By clocks that tick and clocks that chime, 

But how to measure all the ages. 

That will be lived 

     by Shakespeare’s pages?

Translated by Louis Zellikoff

  SEMYON KIRSANOV