Your own isle
by Vladimir Vysotsky
The song from the spectacle "Your own isle", performed on the stage of the Moscow theater "Sovremennik" in 1971
We are leaving our land
forever,
Our sailing may be long, and
for many years...
Let place the Fortune wheel
crosswise at the stand,
We are knowing all of storm's hitting
beforehand.
Be in hurry, old chap, climb the mast,
Look for earth, the question is sharp, -
May be you could see there a continent,
Or it would be, at least, an island.
Someone is having a thought
to discharge,
Someone is having a thought
to retire,
And the others again - in state
of newborn,
Are going not to rest, but
to work forth.
You may have covered with a veil
your destiny,
Laugh again into her face,
simply,
Someone has their own great
continent,
But someone has the only little
island.
I was earlier foretold
of the trouble
With a Queen of spades, was given a hope
of finding
The great continent, at last... But
that didn't stand,
I had fallen in love to find -
own islands.
Lo, the shore has appeared in front
phantasmal!
Don't be in a hurry - count inside
up to hundred!
What's there in the distance -
the continent?
Or my happy end at least -
my island?
end of 1970