The Wolves
translated from the Russian by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
When the church-village slumbers
And the last songs are sung,
When the grey mist arising,
Is o’er the marshes hung,
’Tis then the woods forsaking,
Their way cross country taking.
Nine howling wolves come hungering for food.
Behind the first,—the grey one,—
Trot seven more of black.
Close on their hoary leader;
As rearguard of the pack
The red wolf limps, all bloody,
His paws with gore still ruddy
As after his companions grim he pants.
When through the village lurking
Nought gives them check or fright,
No watch dog dares to bellow,
The peasant ghastly white.
His breath can scarce be taking.
His limbs withhold from shaking—
While prayers of terror freeze upon his lips!
About the church they circle
And softly slink away
To prowl about the priest’s farm,
Then of a sudden they
Are round the drink shop turning,
Fain some bad word be learning—
From peasants drinking noisily within.
With fully thirteen bullets
Thy weapon must be armed,
And with a wad of goat’s hair;
Then thou wilt fight unharmed.
Fire calmly,—and before all
Will the leader, the grey, fall,
The rest will surely follow one by one.
When the cock wakes the village
From out its morning dream.
Thou wilt behold the corpses—
Nine she-wolves by the stream!
On the right lies the grey one,
To left in frost the lame one—
All bloody,—God pardon us sinners!
Волки
Когда в сeлах пустеет,
Смолкнут песни селян
И седой забелеет
Над болотом туман,
Из лесов тихомолком
По полям волк за волком
Отправляются все на добычу.
Семь волков идут смело.
Впереди их идeт
Волк осьмой, шерсти белой;
А таинственный ход
Заключает девятый.
С окровавленной пятой
Он за ними идёт и хромает.
Их ничто не пугает.
На село ли им путь,
Пёс на них и не лает;
А мужик и дохнуть,
Видя их, не посмеет:
Он от страху бледнеет
И читает тихонько молитву.
Волки церковь обходят
Осторожно кругом,
В двор поповский заходят
И шевелят хвостом,
Близ корчмы водят ухом
И внимают всем слухом,
Не ведутся ль там грешные речи?
Их глаза словно свечи,
Зубы шила острей.
Ты тринадцать картечей
Козьей шерстью забей
И стреляй по ним смело,
Прежде рухнет волк белый,
А за ним упадут и другие.
На селе ж, когда спящих
Всех разбудит петух,
Ты увидишь лежащих
Девять мeртвых старух.
Впереди их седая,
Позади их хромая,
Все в крови... с нами сила Господня!
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 23, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“The Wolves” by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy was originally written in the 1840s and later published in the anthology, Russian Lyrics: Songs of Cossack, Lover, Patriot and Peasant (Duffield and Company, 1910), edited and translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi. In the prelude to the book, Dickinson Bianchi addressed the reader and wrote: “The translations in this little collection make no pretension to being more than an effort to share the delight found in them; from which most of the world is debarred by the difficulty of the language in which they are written. They have been chosen at random, each for some intrinsic charm or because of its bearing upon some peculiar phase of the author. […] Remembering always that [Heinrich] Heine declared translation was betrayal,—the rhyme and smoothness have in every case been sacrificed when necessary to preserve the exact rhythm, and as far as possible the vigour and colour, as well as thought of the original; a task entirely beyond me save for the cooperation of an accomplished Russian linguist who has kindly assisted in the literal translation of every poem here presented.”
Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy
