LENINGRADERS, MY CHILDREN!

Jambyl Jabayev

Leningraders, my children!
Leningraders, my pride!
In the current of the steppe stream
I see a glint of the Neva's current.
If along the snowy ridges
I glide my aged gaze,
I see the arches of your bridges,
The blueness of the Baltic dawns,
The swarms of evening lamps,
The points of gilded roofs...
Leningraders, my children!
Leningraders, my pride!
Not for this did I live in the world,
To scent the stench of brigands;
Not for this did I serve you, brothers,
That a crawling reptile should worm its way
Into the fairy-tale city, the garden city;
Not for this did Leningrad
Bewitch the gaze of Jambyl!
No, I lived in the world for this:
That the rabble of fascist thugs,
Failing to spring back in time,
Should lay down their wolfish bones
At your sacred railings.
That is why the Kazakhstan rails
Run northward in their tracks,
That is why the edges of your embankments
Guard the Neva,
Leningraders, my children,
Leningraders, my pride.
Jambyl remembers your grandfathers,
He remembers your great-grandfathers:
They were exiled to his aul,
And he heard the clanking of their fetters.
Having outlived four tsars,
I knew their ferocity;
I wanted their Petersburg fortress
To fall the sooner;
To the murmur of my string,
Already grey-haired, I sang
Of the menacing course of the Baltic wave,
Where the wrath of the whole people seethed.
It was in your shapely houses
That the gleam of Lenin's words, like rays,
First played in the darkness!
It was yours, and no one else's,
The first onslaught of his speeches
And the first sweep of his hand!
The gifts of your finest machine tools
Kirov brought us not without reason:
We have been kin to you since long ago,
Closer than a brother, closer than a sister
To Leningrad is Alma-Ata.
...
And what does Jambyl hear now?
Into your steel door there batters,
As if starved for an eternity,
A many-headed, greedy boa constrictor,
Maddened by its losses...
It will perish at your gates!
Without teeth and without scales
The serpent will hiss in convulsions!
The nightingales will sing again,
Our family will be free,
Leningraders, my children,
Leningraders, my pride!
• • • •
Leningrad is stronger and more formidable
Than in any of the years before:
It is ready to repel the onslaught!
They will not split its stones,
They will not trample its gardens.
To Leningrad from every quarter
The trains are heading,
Our villages and towns
Are seeing off their soldiers.
The gaze of the country is thunderous, leaden,
And the bridle is already ready
For the scoundrels who have overreached themselves.
...
Great battles lie ahead,
But the enemies will have no peace!
I am unable to sleep tonight...
Let my songs at dawn, friends,
Be a help to you,
Leningraders, my children,
Leningraders, my pride!
September 1941