Anna Akhmatova

One goes in straightforward ways,
One in a circle roams:
Waits for a girl of his gone days,
Or for returning home.

But I do go -- and woe is there --
By a way nor straight, nor broad,
But into never and nowhere,
Like trains -- off the railroad.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2000
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, February, 2001