I am an end and a beginning.
So little spun from all my spinning!
I’ve been a firm link nonetheless;
with that good fortune I’ve been blessed.
New Russia enters on her greatness;
they’ll carve my head two-faced, like Janus,
at crossroads, looking down both ways,
where wind and sand, and many days…
by Владислав Фелицианович Ходасевич (Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich)
translated by Michael Frayn
I’m not of those who left their country
For wolves to tear it limb from limb.
Their flattery does not touch me.
I will not give my songs to them.
Yet I can take the exile’s part,
I pity all among the dead.
Wanderer, your path is dark,
Wormwood is the stranger’s bread.
But here in the flames, the stench,
The murk, where what remains
Of youth is dying, we don’t flinch
As the blows strike us, again and again.
And we know there’ll be a reckoning,
An account for every hour… There’s
Nobody simpler than us, or with
More pride, or fewer tears.
– by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1922)
– from Anno Domini MCMXXI translation by D. M. Thomas
Rambling At The Bridge Head 