From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   When waters of a flood that swept the planet   
   Returned once more into the ocean bed   
   From foam of a departing ocean current   
   Love climbed so quietly upon the land   
   And disappeared in air before its time -   
   And for it there are sixteen hundred times.   
      
   And some strange people - there are some such yet -   
   Inhale this mix with full chest that is heaving   
   Reward and punishment they don't await   
   And thinking that they are only but breathing   
   They do appear to breathe, or so it's seeming,   
   Unevenly, unevenly, at that.   
      
   Only sense, just like a river boat,   
   For so long, so long remains afloat,   
   For before I know that "I love" -   
   That is, that I breathe, or that I live!   
      
   And there will be enough wanderings and travels   
   Land of love - such a great land it is!   
   And it will be asking for ordeals   
   From its knights, before they can have bliss.   
   It will ask departures and despair   
   And deprive of calm, of sleep and peace...   
      
   But you cannot drive off the insane   
   From this land, they do agree to pay   
   Any price - their life if that is called -   
   Just so not to cut, to keep instead   
   The magical invisible thread   
   That is woven in between their souls....   
      
   The fresh air intoxicated them,   
   Knocked them from their feet, raised up again,   
   For if I had never ever loved -   
   I'd have never breathed, have never lived!   
      
   But the many that are choking on their love -   
   You won't reach, however you may shout...   
   Counted by prayer and empty word.   
   But this count has been mixed in blood.   
   And we will place candles at the head   
   Of ones dead from the unknown love.   
      
   Their voices have to morph in single one   
   Their souls must wander in between the flowers   
   To breathe with the eternity at one   
   To meet each other sighing in some hour   
   Upon the fragile bridges and roads   
   Upon the narrow crossroads of the world...   
      
   I will lay the fields for those in love,   
   Sleeping or awake, just let them sing!   
   I am breathing - therefore, I love!   
   I'm in love - and therefore, I live!   
      
   By Vladimir Vysotsky   
   Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat   
   https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)