Bertold Brecht: To Posterity (1938) / Pablo Neruda: Nuevo Canto de Amor a Stalingrado (1942) / Victory: Ilya Ehrenburg, 9 May 1945

Bertold Brecht (1898-1956)

I came into the cities in a time of disorder
As hunger reigned.
I came among men in a time of turmoil
And I rose up with them.
And so passed
The time given to me on earth.

I ate my food between slaughters.
I lay down to sleep among murderers.
I tended to love with abandon.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
And so passed
The time given to me on earth

In my time streets led into a swamp.
My language betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers sat more securely, or so I hoped.
And so passed
The time given to me on earth.

The powers were so limited. The goal
Lay far in the distance
It could clearly be seen although even I
Could hardly hope to reach it.
And so passed
The time given to me on earth.

You, who shall resurface following the flood
In which we have perished,
Contemplate –
When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also the dark time
That you have escaped.
For we went forth, changing our country more frequently than our shoes
Through the class warfare, despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage

And yet we know well
Even hatred of vileness
Distorts a man’s features. 
Even anger at injustice
Makes hoarse his voice.
Ah, we 
Who sought to prepare the soil for kindness 
Could not ourselves be kind. 

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Pablo Neruda (1904-73): Nuevo Canto de Amor a Stalingrado (1942)

Save me a fragment of violent foam
save me a rifle, save a plow for me

and let them place it at my grave
with a red ear of grain from your soil,

that it be known, if there be any doubt,
that I died loving you and you loved me,

and if I did not fight in your waist
I leave in your honour this dark grenade,

this song of love for Stalingrad

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Victory

Not in paradise, but on this vast tract of earth,
where at every step there is sorrow, sorrow, sorrow,

I awaited her, as one waits only when one loves,
I knew her as one knows only oneself,

I knew her in blood, in mud, in grief.
The hour struck.