These castles, whose remains are strewn in heaps for miles, <br />Once graced and guarded you, Crimea the ungrateful! <br />Today they sit upon the hills, each like a great skull <br />In which reptiles reside or men worse than reptiles. <br /> <br />Let’s climb a tower, search for crests upon worn tiles, <br />For an inscription or a hero’s name, the fateful <br />Bane of armies now forgotten by the faithful, <br />A wizened beetle wrapped in vines below the aisles. <br /> <br />Here Greeks wrought Attic ornaments upon the walls, <br />From which Italians would cast Mongols into chains, <br />And where the Mecca-bound once stopped to pray and beg. <br /> <br />Today above the tombs the shadow of night falls, <br />The black-winged buzzards fly like pennants over plains, <br />As if towards a city ever touched by plague. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />— translated from the Polish by Leo Yankevich <br />first appeared in <i>the Sarmatian Review</i><br /><br />Adam Mickiewicz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-castle-ruins-at-balaklava/
