Saturday, October 22, 2011

ALEKSANDR TVARDOVSKIY'S ARTILLERY



"You can't describe the moral lift,

when in the fight your spirits weary hears above the hostile fire,

Your own artillery.

Shells score the air like wavy hair

from a forward battery.

As regimental cannon crack

While from positions further back,

in bitter sweet song overhead

crashing discordantly

Division's pounding joins the attack;

Mother like she belches shell;

Glorious it flies, and well,

As, with a hissing screaming squall,

A roaring furnace, giving all, she sears a path for the infantry...."



~ by Aleksandr Tvardovskiy, from the poem "Vasily Tyorkin" 1943 ~

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