Часовые любви — Sentinels of Love

Image credit.

I remember a girl — Penny D. — I fancied among our group of Russian learners in Moscow in the summer of 1981. Penny, daughter to an influential British journalist, managed to meet up with Bulat Okudzhava — quite a feat, as the man was a cult figure in those days. Not a dissident, Okudzhava was widely held to be a moral authority by virtue of being a ponderous person whose depth and honesty one was free to regard as a competitor to the system's assuredness.

Часовые любви на Смоленской стоят.
Часовые любви у Никитских не спят.
Часовые любви
по Петровке идут неизменно...
Часовым полагается смена.

О, великая вечная армия,
где не властны слова и рубли,
где все — рядовые: ведь маршалов нет у любви!
Пусть поход никогда ваш не кончится.
Признаю только эти войска!..
Сквозь зимы и вьюги к Москве подступает
весна.

Часовые любви на Волхонке стоят.
Часовые любви на Неглинной не спят.
Часовые любви
по Арбату идут неизменно...
Часовым полагается смена.

The below translation was very helpful in my effort to figure out the poem's meaning. I would tend to translate

Часовым полагается смена.

as

the sentinels are entitled to be relieved /den Wachen steht es zu, abgelöst zu werden. The German turn of phrase brings out — helpfully to me — the plural dative case (in "Часовым").

I have problems with

Признаю только эти войска!

which I reluctantly translate as

I simply accept/respect (the presence of) the(se) troops.

Strangely, the German phrase Wächter der Liebe rings a bit regimental in my ears, a problem I do not have with the English equivalent.

The English lyrics:


Sentinels of love are on guard on Smolenskaya [a street in the historical centre of Moscow]
Sentinels of love are awake on Nikitskiye [Nikitskiye Vorota - Nikitskiye Gate - a square in the centre of Moscow]
Sentinels of love tirelessly marching down Petrovka [another street, very beautiful and old]
They ought to be changed someday.

O great eternal army
On which money or words have no hold
In which everyone is a private, love can have no marshals!
Let your campaign never end.
O these troops
Spring is making her way back to Moscow through winters and snowstorms

Sentinels of love are on guard on Volkhonka
Sentinels of love are awake on Neglinnaya
Sentinels of love tirelessly marching down Arbat [another street, very beautiful and old]
They ought to be changed someday

The source.