Loyalty

You will remain in my memory,
You tranquil pines, and such things
As the nocturnal Pakhra,
The smoke o'er the distant raft there.
You will remain in my heart
My suburban Moscow springs,
Whatever happens to you,
And may happen to me hereafter.
Maybe you'll meet some girl
More lovely, more wise, or more dear.
Maybe my heart
Will forget about its first love.
But like pines
with their roots
We are knit with our Motherland here:
Shake us,
And try
Our hearts from her to remove!

Yulia Drunina.

Translated by Walter May

Yulia Drunina (b. 1925). Вот and brought up in Moscow, leaving school just as the war began in 1941 she at once volunteered for ac-tive service at the front. She was an army nurse in a rifle and la-ter an artillery regiment. She was wounded in battle, suffered concus-sion and received medals. She graduated from the Literary Institute in Moscow in 1952. Her work was first published in 1945 and her first book of poetry In an Army Coat appeared in 1948.