Imitation Of Annensky by Anna Akhmatova

And with you, my first vagary,

I parted. In the east it turned blue.

You said simply: ‘I won’t forget you.’

I didn’t know at first what you could mean.

 

Rise and set, the other faces,

Dear today, and tomorrow gone.

Why is it that at this page

Alone the corner is turned down?

 

And eternally the book opens

Here, as if it’s the only part

I must know. From the parting moment

The unreturning years haven’t departed.

 

O, the heart is not made of stone

As I said, it’s made of flame…

I’ll never understand it. Are you close

To me, or did you simply love me?

 

– by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1911, Tsarskoye Selo)

– from Вечер (Evening, 1912), translation by D. M. Thomas