It is not a valley nor is it a plain - There rock-falls daily you can attain, An avalanche can fall down again any time. Spite you can turn off, for strain on your nerve You will turn down a safety curve - By precipices to the top prefer to climb. If had not been there you’d be not aware Of strains you would be able to bear, In spite that in dales you set on fire the Thames - At down-a-hill you cannot reveal One tenth of that fantastic zeal, Nor sights beyond of any fairy tales. There are no graves, memorial plates: A stone stands for a burial place - It points out the spot where you have obtained your rest. Eternally shines by emerald ice The top for which you’ve paid that price, That mountain peak with which you have been obsessed. Let them rag and say, that it’s a wrong way - But none expires there in vain, It’s higher than to die from vodka or rum. Some will change their life and there arrive To risk, to feel an innate drive, To conquer the peak you did not overcome. Steep walls of the crack - don’t be taken aback, And always keep from chancing your luck: In mountains is not reliable a rock or a stone, or an ice! Relying we are on strength of the hands, On pitons and thorough help of the friends, And praying for the ropes would suffice. We’re hollowing stairs for going up, Exhausted and smeared, we look for a gap, Still eager is heart the mountain’s top to get! Now, you can enjoy the world at your feet, Still you will envy a little bit Them who still have the mountain peak ahead.
© Vyacheslav Chistyakov. Translation, 2016