“In February 1942 Pravda published a poem: ‘Wait for me’. Soldier’s cut it out of the paper, copied it out as they sat in the trenches, learned it by heart and sent it back in letters to wives and girlfriends; it was found in the breast pockets of the killed and wounded. In the history of Russian poetry it would be hard to find a poem which had such an impact on people as ‘Wait for me’.”
Wait for me and I'll return
Only wait very hard
Wait when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain
Wait when the winds sweep the snowdrifts
Wait in the sweltering heat
Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays
Wait even when from afar, no letters come to you
Wait even when others are tired of waiting
Wait even when my mother and my son think I am no more
And when friends sit round the fire
Drinking to my memory
Wait
Do not hurry to drink to my memory, too
Wait, for I'll return, defying every death
And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky
They will never understand that in the midst of death
You and your waiting saved me
Only you and I will know how I survived
It is because you waited
Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov
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