‘I Have Written Down The Words…’ by Anna Akhmatova

I have written down the words

I have long dared not to speak.

Dully the head beats,

This body is not my own.

 

The call of the horn has died.

The heart has the same puzzles.

Snowflakes, -light- autumnal,

Lie on the croquet lawn.

 

Let the last leaves rustle!

Let the last thoughts languish!

I don’t want to trouble

People used to being happy.

 

Because your lips are yours

I forgive their cruel joke…

O, tomorrow you will come

On the first sledge-ride of winter.

 

The drawing room candles will glow

More tenderly in the day.

I will bring from the conservatory

A whole bouquet of roses.

 

– by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1910, Tsarskoye Selo)

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

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