OLGA SHIRKEVICH

THE LAST ADIEU

We say "last adieu, boys" and bid farewell forever.
So many of you had no time for the life.
You wont taste it in future, enjoy it. Never!
In the sunshine of youth - all in all twenty five.

You were eager to dream and to live not in vain,
To be tender with wives who are able to wait,
To wait after parting to meet you again,
You wanted to laugh or to grieve with your mate.

Alas, instantly everything came to an end -
Compartments are flooded, and gloomy, and silent,
And never your warmest regards you can send.
You were fated to die, as disaster was violent.

And grief inexpressible breaks suffering heart,
The anguish entirely fills all the body,
The worn-out breast is tearing apart.
And now the same overfills everybody.

Farewell and forgive us. We are indebted,
Indebted and guilty for being too late
To save, lads, your souls. Forgive if you waited,
For Gods sake forgive us. So willed the Fate.



St.-Petersburg. О.N. Shirkevich. olga24@inbox.ru
The wife of a Russian submariner.