A Song

by Nikola Vaptsarov

Over Pirin
howling winds
the forests sway.
We were seven
set out to fight
far away;
very soon then
we lost sight
both of Pirin
and its starry night.

In the thickets
with wild beasts we slept
and across the border
thus we crept.
On the grass
we seemed to see the stains
of our fathers' blood
washed by the rains.
And we seemed to hear
the green leaves say
where our mothers
in the ground buried lay.

We knew
when we saw earth ruddy-red,
that our first love
there lay dead.

Seven of us
set out to fight.
Only three of us
came back in the night