STARS
Stars of night, stars of night,
At my verses peer
Like the eyes, like the eyes
Of men no longer here.
In the hour of night repose
I can hear them say:
«Be the conscience bright of those
The war years took away!»
A hillman, true to Daghestan,
No easy path is mine.
Who knows, perhaps, who knows, perhaps
I’ll be a star sometime?
Then at another’s verse I’ll peer,
An earth-committed star,
The conscience bright of those who my
Contemporaries are.
TO MY MOTHER
As a boy
I was unruly,
Many a rebuke I earned.
But with adult firmness, coolly,
All remonstrances I spurned.
Rating my own powers highly,
Never have I run from fate.
Yet I now approach you shyly,
Like a child, and hesitate.
Now we are alone together,
My heart’s anguish I’ll confess,
And a head that’s grey and weathered
Into your soft palm I’ll press.
I have been a rash, ungracious
Prisoner of vanity!
Not enough consideration,
Mother, have you had from me!
I was gaily pirouetting
When I heard a deep heart’s groan:
Could I really be forgetting
My old mother, left alone?
Anxiously, but without censure,
Lovingly you glance at me,
Heave a sigh and let a gentle
Tear fall accidentally.
As a star on the horizon
To its final goal has sped,
In your palm your boy contritely
Lays his weary, greying head.