by Anna Akhmatova
Don’t send me a dove,
Don’t write me disquieting letters,
Don’t make the March wind keen in my face.
Yesterday I entered green paradise,
Where there is peace for body and soul
Under a tent of the poplars’ shadow.
And from here I see the little city,
The barracks and sentry boxes at the palace,
The yellow Chinese bridge above the ice.
For three hours you’ve been awaiting me—you waver,
But you cannot leave the porch
And you marvel, so many new stars.
As a gray squirrel, I will leap on the alder tree,
As a weasel, shy, I’ll scurry by,
As a swan, I’ll call to you,
So that it won’t be terrible for the groom
To wait in the whirling blue snow
For his dead bride.
From:
Belaya Staya, (1917)
Copyright ©:
Translated from the Russian by Judith Hemschemeyer
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