Among the swollen candles and evening prayers, Among war trophies and peaceful bonfires

Among the swollen candles and evening prayers,
Among war trophies and peaceful bonfires
Lived book children who did not know the battles,
Exhausted from their petty disasters.

Children are always annoyed
Their age and lifestyle
And we fought to the bruises,
To mortal insults
But the clothes were patched
We mothers on time -
We ate books
Drunk on the lines

Hair stuck to our sweaty foreheads,
And sucked sweetly from phrases in the spoon,
And the smell of struggle circled our heads,
From the yellowed pages flying down to us.

And tried to understand
We, who did not know wars,
For the war cry
Those who received the howl
The secret of the word "order",
setting boundaries,
Meaning of attack and clang
War chariots.

And in the boiling cauldrons of the old slaughterhouses and troubles
So much food for our little brains!
We are on the role of traitors, cowards, Judas
In children's games, they appointed their enemies.

And the villain's footsteps
Didn't let it cool
And the most beautiful ladies
They promised to love
And reassuring friends
And loving your neighbors
We are the heroes
They introduced themselves.

Only in dreams you can’t run away for good:
A short age of fun - so much pain around!
Try to open the palms of the dead
And take weapons from hard-working hands.

Experience it by taking possession
Another warm sword
And wearing armor,
What's up, what's up!
Find out who you are: a coward
Or the chosen one of fate -
And taste it
Real fight.

And when a wounded friend collapses nearby
And over the first loss you will howl, grieving,
And when you suddenly remain without skin
Because they killed him - not you,

You will understand what you have learned
Distinguished, found
He took it on a grin -
This is the grin of death!
Lies and evil - look
How their faces are rough
And always behind
Crows and coffins!

If the meat from the knife
You haven't eaten a single piece
If hands are folded
Watched from above
And did not join the fight
With a scoundrel, with an executioner, -
So in life you were
Nothing, nothing!

If, cutting through the path with his father's sword,
You wound salty tears on your mustache,
If in a hot battle I experienced what how much, -
So you read the necessary books as a child!
V. Vysotsky