Kroda
      Legend


  Poppyflowers Are Blossoming
  
By our steppes, turks and tartars
On horses like black clouds ride,
And ground breathing burning smell –
Lasso of fires all around,
And hordeman whirls his lasso rope:
He found there living prey –
Girl barefoot runs to the wood.
Right now he’ll captivate her,
Shall bind her with raw sour leather
And sell in Kaffa on slavemarket.
Mercilessly he’ll spend on drinking
All the girl’s tears, life worthlessly.
For can he value girl’s beauty,
Shine of her bright eyes, silken plait –
All that he’ll sell for one ducat,
Cause he’s mantrader, hordeman, cutthroat.
Girl runs away in grim despair,
The plait is covering her shoulders,
And tears fall in riverford,
Your trace is stained with your blood.
Yet, like a hissting serpent, lasso
Is whistling over your youth summer…
And suddenly, the cut out rope
Powerlessly fell onto ground.
Wandering Cossack in the valley
Cut it away and yet he shows
For girl the pathway straight to forest.
- “I’ll see you once again!” –
Predator eye of hordeman glimpsed,
He bowed on pommel, yelled and rushed
In gallop with hordemen to hollow…
Hej, Cossack, run away! – but Cossack…
…not going to escape. Once more he looked
At girl, and by the valley
He rushed to intercept invaders.
The day of May in blazing circle
Alarmed with bells of all it’s thunders,
And lightning opened wide
Celestial gates all around…
Yet enemies approaching closer!
The vile grin tearing their mouths –
Seems like disaster ride the earth,
Avide, be wildered and mad.
In drops of mind, in drops of blood.
The Cossack shot from his pistol –
And scream was spreaded over field:
Mantrader’s corpse hanged on stirrup,
His mad horse ran forcing it’s way

  (part 2)

…At last in life the hordeman measured
By head the steppe above the river…
The horses nearer, faces are vile,
And sabers crossed, sabers clashed,
The sparkles got entangled with blood,
Again, with scream manhunter pierced
The Pridneprovie, in death fear…
But steel raged and raged again,
Sibilant blood hissed and froth hissed,
The Cossack covered the valley
With foes corpses by all his might,
By skill of Sich and war campaign
On glorious Don – brothers taught him fight.
Yet Cossack kills hordemen in riverford,
Fear starts to embrace hordemen:
- “This is shaitan!
Not a Cossack!” –
But Cossack grins in long mustache:
- “I’m not at first kicks ass of shaitans!
Now you’ll realize who’s the Cossack,
That known among the folk as Mak” –
And again, the steel in close combat
Clashing above the raging water,
The river floods subhumans dead –
No strength, no power can’t broke Cossack.
But behold the black betrayal coming:
Dreg, rabble sneaked up from behind,
He’s assassin with reptile soul,
He’s all for sale, just give a coin.
On quite the traitor raised his weapon,
Gunshot pealed wide above the river
And Cossack fell on horse’s back.
- “It’s end of Cossack! Mak is dead!” -
The hordemen rushed straight to him
But Cossack severely looked at them:
- “No, cutthroats, I am not dead,
For I shall bloom among my folk!” –
Cutthroats raising up their weapons:
- “The blossom of your life had left you!
Now, Cossack, how we shall do:
To poppy seeds by sabers cut you!..” –
The hordemen shredded, cut the warrior,
His white body fell onto the ground,
And like a seeds it had grew up,
At summer it blossomed with poppy red…
The hordemen and a jewlike traitor
Are long forgotten by my land’s folk,
For morbid harvest of their traice
Was overgrown by wild dead weeds.
And poppyflowers are still blossoming, -
For ages they bloom in wide expanse,
In plait of girl and in the vast field!
And poppyflowers are blossoming!