"Helga! Helga!" sounded over the fields
Where they broke each other's backs
Young men with fierce eyes and strong wiry hands.
"Olga! Olga!" howled the Drevlians
Their hair yellow as finest mead
Clawing out from a burning bathouse,
With bloody fingernails, a path.
And beyond the foreign distant seas,
Crashed, never tiring,
Sounding out the same sonorous name
Varangian steel into Byzantine brass.
I forgot all which I remembered before
All the Christian names
Only your name, Olga, for my throat
Is sweeter than aged wine.
Year after year, grows more irresistible
The song of ages in my blood
I am drunk on the former weight
Of my Scandinavian bones.
A lagging warrior of ancient hosts,
Full of hatred to the world
I await the mad halls of Valhalla
Glorious battles and feasts I await.
I see a skull of foaming braga*,
The pink chines of bulls
And as a Valkyrie in flight,
Olga, Olga you circle over me!