I paced in my room until late in the night,
Wide opened my eyes, thought and took sight.
Someone sang somewhere of blazing luck,
Their weeping-subtle echo hung there stuck.
Someone declaimed poems of death on and on and on,
Laughing, eyes stared through the black yon.
I paced in my room until late in the night,
Someone kept watching me through first light,
watched and watched.*
Ikh hob geshpant in mayn tsimer biz shpet in der nakht,
Breyt geefnt di oygn, gekukt un getrakht.
Es hot emits fun flamikn glik vu gezungen,
An ekho hot veynendik shtil opgeklungen.
Es hot lider fun toyt emits lang-lang getsoygn,
In der fintser hot gekukt lakhndik oygn.
Ikh hob geshpant in mayn tsimer biz shpet in der nakht,
Emits hot iber mir dort gevakht, dort gevakht.
By Moyshe Varshe
Translated by Corbin Allardice
*- Literally, “someone watched [over] me there, watched there.” Hence, this line rhymes normally in the Yiddish. The choice to interrupt the rhyme in the translation is my own.
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