Nikolai Nekrasov: In War

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

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Nikolai Nekrasov (1821-1878)
In War
(Translator not identified)

Hearing the terrors of the war, sore troubled,
By each new victim of the combat torn -
Nor friend, nor wife I give my utmost pity,
Nor do I for the fallen hero mourn.
Alas! the wife will find a consolation.
The friend by friend is soon forgot in turn.

But somewhere is the one soul that remembers -
That will remember unto death’s dark shore,
Nor can the tears of a heart-stricken mother
Forget the sons gone down on fields of gore.
One soul there is that like the weeping willow
Can never raise its drooping branches more.