From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   Someone saw the fruit, that could not get ripe   
   They shook the trunk - it fell, just so...   
   Here's the song of him who did not finish his song   
   And that he had a voice - he did not know.   
      
   Perhaps he was not on good terms with fate,   
   And on bad terms with circumstance.   
   And the tight string lay on a fret   
   That was broken in single place.   
      
   He started shyly with first note   
   But did not finish it, did not..   
   His music was incomplete   
   Did not make anyone's soul rise..   
   The dog kept barking, and the cat   
   Was hunting mice.   
      
   It's funny! Funny, yes it is! It is.   
   But he made jokes - they didn't impress,   
   He did not finish tasting wine   
   Did not even touch it to his face.   
      
   While he started the argument   
   Unhurried and uncertain   
   Just like, on forehead, drops of sweat   
   The soul had shimmered through his skin.   
      
   He began the duel on the rug,   
   Barely, barely he began.   
   The judge did not open the score.   
   And little he saw of the game.   
      
   He sought to know all of it,   
   But did not reach, did not...   
   Not till the riddle, not the root,   
   He did not dig until the deep,   
   And her, that is still by herself,   
   He did not finish loving!   
      
   It's funny! Funny, yes it is! It is.   
   And he had hurried - all for none.   
   And all that he did not resolve   
   Was not resolved by anyone.   
      
   Not with single word do I lie -   
   He served the pure word, poetry.   
   And he wrote poems on the snow -   
   But snows melt beneath the trees.   
      
   But the snow was falling then   
   And the freedom to write on the snow.   
   And the big snowflakes and hail   
   He touched with his lips as he ran, so.   
      
   But her, the one in silver necklace   
   He did not reach, not at his pace...   
   Did not reach goal, the runner he,   
   Not finished flight, it was in vain,   
   And sign beneath which he was born   
   Was licking cold Milky Way.   
      
   It's funny! Funny, yes it is! It is   
   When seconds do not reach the light -   
   The sound that does not reach the end -   
   Unfinished flight, unfinished flight.   
      
   It's funny? Funny, well, it's so -   
   Funny to you, even to me.   
   The horse that jumps and bird that flies -   
   And whose fault could it be?   
      
   By Vladimir Vysotsky   
   Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)