When After Nights

Salomėja Nėris

When after nights of frost the lilacs bloom
The nightingale can’t help but burst out singing…
Though all around us smoking ruins loom
And far away a cannonade is ringing.

Although the fumes of death and gunfire shroud
The ash-grey fields, forsaken and unploughed,
Yet shall we build new roads and sow the loam
And joy again will visit my old home.

Fair summer dawns will rouse us from the gloom.
With labour will the land again be swinging.
The frosty nights are gone, the lilacs bloom,
The nightingale can’t help but burst out singing…