by Anna Akhmatova
All’s as it was: the snowstorm’s
Fine flakes wet the window pane,
And I myself am not new-born,
But a man came to me today.
I asked: ‘What do you wish?’
He said: ‘To be with you
All’s as it was: the snowstorm’s
Fine flakes wet the window pane,
And I myself am not new-born,
But a man came to me today.
I asked: ‘What do you wish?’
He said: ‘To be with you
My imagination, obediently,
Conceives grey eyes.
In Tver, in my solitude,
It’s you I bitterly remember.
Happily captive in another’s arms,
On the left bank of the Neva,
My famed contemporary,
You have all that you desired;
The high vault is bluer
Than the sky’s solid blue…
Forgive me, happy boy,
The death I brought you –
For the roses from every place,
For your foolish words,
That your bold dark face
Pale with
From my poor sins I am set free.
In lilac dusk the taper smolders;
The dark stole’s rigid drapery
Conceals a massive head and shoulders.
“Talitha kumi”: Is it He
Once more? How fast the heart is
Here we’re all drunkards and whores,
Joylessly stuck together!
On the walls, birds and flowers
Pine for the clouds and air.
The smoke from your black pipe
Makes strange vapours rise.
The skirt I wear is tight,
It’s fine here: the rustle and crackle;
A hard frost every day,
On the bush bowed with white fire,
Icy, dazzling roses.
And on the formal magnificent snow
Tracks of skis, like memories,
Of how, in some
You are always new and mysterious,
I am obedient to you each day.
But your love, my severe one,
Is a trial by steel and flame.
I’m forbidden to sing or smile,
Forbidden long ago to pray.
How can you bear to view the Neva,
How can you bear to cross its bridges? …
No surprise I’m marked for sadness,
Since that vision of you appeared.
Sharp, the black angels’ wings,
Soon, the judgement
It was not mystery or grief,
Nor the wise will of fate –
It was the impression of strife,
Our meetings always left behind.
From dawn I’d anticipate
The moment when you’d appear,
Feeling faint stabbing pains
Don’t taunt your heart with earthly joys,
Don’t cleave to your wife and home,
Take the bread from your child’s mouth,
So you can give it to a stranger.
Be the humblest servant of the man
Who