How Young We Have Been

[Ilya Shambat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU1jUiXOJpo

Look around, unfamiliar passerby,
Familiar is my incorruptible sight.
Maybe, I am this, only younger,
We will not always recognize us.

Nothing on the earth passes without a trace,
And immortal was our youth.

How young we had been, how young we had been,
How sincerely we loved, how we in ourselves believed.

Without ridicule us had met
All flowers on the roads of the land.

We forgave errors to our friends,
We could not ask for betrayal.

Nothing on the earth passes without a trace,
And immortal was our youth.

How young we had been, how young we had been,
How sincerely we loved, how we in ourselves believed.

The first half we played
And just this we could understand,
That we did not lose you on the land,
Trying myself not to hide.

Nothing on the earth passes without a trace,
And immortal was our youth.

The lightning has burned out in the sky,
And thunder in the heart has gone quiet.
For us not to forget the beloved faces,
Not to forget our dear eyes.

Nothing on the earth passes without a trace,
And immortal was our youth.
How young we had been, how young we had been,
How sincerely we loved, how we in ourselves believed.

By Dmitry Horostovsky
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat