Nekrasov

“ Yesterday, tired with tramping through the swamps,
I strayed into the barn and slumbered there.
When I awakened, through the barn’s wide cracks
The beams of a rejoicing sun shone in.
A dove is cooing; flying o’er the roof,
I hear the young rooks caw, with joyous din.
Another bird is flitting through the air;
I know it by its shadow for a crow.
Hark! there is whispering! All along a crack
Attentive eyes are gazing, in a row.
As flowers grow all commingled in the fields,
Were mingled eyes of gray, of brown, of blue. ”

“ When some new victim hath his life-blood shed,
’Tis not his wife I pity, nor his friend,
Nor grieve I for the hero who is dead.
The wife in time will cease to mourn her loss,
The best of friends and comrades will forget ”