О фатальных датах и цифрах [O fatal'nikh datakh i tsifrakh] [English translation]

Whoever life ends tragically, that's a real poet

And even if your time is fixed, at least its to the full,

At number 26 one stepped in front of a pistol

Another slipped into a noose in Angleterre.

And at 33 they gave Christ (He was a poet, he said:

Thou shalt not kill. Kill, and I'll find you anywhere, he said)

But, nails went into his hands, so he didn't get up to anything

So he didn't write and thought less.

At the number 37 the tipsiness flies off me in a trice,

Now it's just like a cold wind has blown,

At this number, Pushkin predicted a duel for himself

And Mayakovsky laid his temple on a barrel

Let's stick with the number 37. Insidious God

Put the question point-blank: you're either or.

On this side of line passed Byron and Rimbeau,

Contemporary writers seem to have jumped across somehow.

The duel didn't take place, or has been postponed,

And at 33 they crucified them, but not too hard,

And in 37 not blood, what blood was there? And even grey hair

Soiled the temples not too lavishly.

I dare you to shoot yourself. Has your heart long since gone to your boots?

Patience, psychopaths and rabble rousers!

Poets are walking back on heels along a knife blade

And are cutting till they bleed their barefoot souls.

In the word long-necked, there were 3 es at the end

Keep the poet quite, it's an obvious conclusion

And knife him, but he's happy to hang on the blade

Killed because he was dangerous

I pity you, believers in fatal dates and numbers!

You suffer like kidnapped girls in a harem:

Life has got longer, and, perhaps

Poet's time has been put off for a while!

Suggested by The state51 Conspiracy

Владимир Высоцкий - Баллада о времени

• Artist:Vladimir Vysotsky
• Album:О фатальных датах и цифрах