Wait for me

[Wolfram-Harms]

I guess this won't belong here, and will be moved. I found this poem only today, but it is one of the best known Russian poets from WW2.

The writer wrote it to his loved one in 1941.

I put it into this picture of the absolutely wonderful Kuban landscape and the marvellous lighting in "Battle of Kuban", and I found it fits.
Am I sentimental? Sure - I'm only human. But who ever had to leave his loved ones to go to hell for a long time, will understand the feeling.

Maybe most others also - we are all only human, aren't we?            

 

[click on image to enlarge ]

 

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Wolfram-Harms

[7.GShAP/Silas]

Thanks for posting this.

[wtornado]

Nice.

 

That was not written by a Russian pilot he knew he was not coming back

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

But did he make it home?

[seafireliv]

Very thought provoking.

[Pierre64]

Listen "The White Cliffs Of Dover" and "We’ll Meet Again" sung by Vera Lynn. The same very moving feelings from British side.

Dame Vera Lynn is still with us and well at 101! A big salute to her beauty and her immortal talent !

[Farky]

2 hours ago, Space_Ghost said:

But did he make it home?

 

Yes he did, author Konstantin Simonov (war correspondent during WWII) died in 1979. 

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

6 minutes ago, Pierre64 said:

Listen "The White Cliffs Of Dover" and "We’ll Meet Again" sung by Vera Lynn.

 

-snip-

 

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day?
Vera, Vera
What has become of you
Does anybody else in here
Feel the way I do?

[Pierre64]

 

 

 

 

 

[Lusekofte]

Here is a video version of this poem World of warships 

 

[Wolfram-Harms]

I posted the peom, because it does not belong to one side, not to one party, not to one group of interests -

it is just a naked human poem to me. It could have been from another poet from another country.

 

In the western world, we rather know western poems and songs, like "White Cliffs of Dover", or "In Flanders Fields" from the Great War.
That's why I searched for a Russian poem - and found the same human sentiments like anywhere else. Off course!
Like Sting sang in his song: "...the Russians love their children, too."
 

For all who do not know it, here is  "In Flanders Fields" - a war poem written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.
He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres.

But again, it is a poem that - in German words - could as well have been from "the other side". Because it is human, it is touching every human being.

 

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

 

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Wolfram-Harms

[Mesha44]

3 hours ago, Farky said:

 

Yes he did, author Konstantin Simonov (war correspondent during WWII) died in 1979. 

Sadly he outlived her.  She died in 1975.

[56RAF_Roblex]

4 hours ago, Space_Ghost said:

 

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day?
Vera, Vera
What has become of you
Does anybody else in here
Feel the way I do?

 

Roger Waters.

 

I find the lyrics to his song 'Southampton Docks' on 'The Final Cut' album very sad

 

"They disembarked in 45
And no one spoke
And no one smiled
There were too many spaces in the line.
And gathered at the cenotaph
They all agreed with hand on heart
To sheath the sacrificial knives.

But now...

She stands upon Southampton dock
With her handkerchief
And her summer frock
Clings To her wet body in the rain.
In quiet desperation
Knuckles white upon the slippery reins
She bravely waves the boys goodbye again."
 

 

[Wolfram-Harms]

3 hours ago, raaaid said:

at least thank god they didnt divorce the poem would have lost force

 

Not for me, it wouldn't. There is seldom any happy end, like in fairy tales.
And the relationship did not last - she later left him for another man.

 

But does that matter for the poem itself - for the moment and feelings in which it was written?

 

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by Wolfram-Harms

[Rolling_Thunder]

1 hour ago, Wolfram-Harms said:

But does that matter for the poem itself - for the moment and feelings in which it was written?

 

 

Its a beautiful piece of art and emotion. Raaaid, although he tries, doesn't have the soul of an artist.

[-TBC-AeroAce]

I respect it but dont like it as a poem!!

 

Maybe translation bias.

 

Not a good poem but a very moving one!

[Feathered_IV]

It would be really something to read and understand the poem in its native language, and it certainly loses some of it in the translation.  However it still stands alone if you take the will over the literal words.   

[Wolfram-Harms]

That's what I think - it is not a poem like anything by Wordsworth, Baudelaire, Puschkin or Schiller.

It is a poem by an amateur poet, who needed to express a feeling.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by Wolfram-Harms

[unreasonable]

19 hours ago, Wolfram-Harms said:

I posted the peom, because it does not belong to one side, not to one party, not to one group of interests -

it is just a naked human poem to me. It could have been from another poet from another country.

 

In the western world, we rather know western poems and songs, like "White Cliffs of Dover", or "In Flanders Fields" from the Great War.
That's why I searched for a Russian poem - and found the same human sentiments like anywhere else. Off course!
Like Sting sang in his song: "...the Russians love their children, too."
 

For all who do not know it, here is  "In Flanders Fields" - a war poem written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.
He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres.

But again, it is a poem that - in German words - could as well have been from "the other side". Because it is human, it is touching every human being.

 

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

 

 

 

Interesting that you quote this poem - always one of my favourites. What it has in common with your "Wait for Me" is the idea that most men of any race or creed need a strong reason to keep fighting in a bitter and prolonged war with a high risk of death or injury. In many of these poems it is the reward of a woman: Helen.  In others it is somehow making the world a better place, although I am less convinced that this works so well .  Then there is the afterlife, which may (or may not) be some combination of the first two, depending on your creed.

 

"In Flanders Fields" is a little unusual since the motivation called upon is purely duty to dead brothers in arms; no soft, welcoming arms are offered either in this world or the next.  The desired outcome is not survival but victory. A soldier's poem indeed.  I very much doubt that it is any longer taught in English schools.

 

Like others I suspect that the translation of "Wait for me" is terrible and it would be much better without trying to make English rhymes.

[ATA_Vasilij]

Sooo nice if she would really wait. No one other instead of him, she refused anybody, just wait till he will come back. Such relation must be truly nice.