Anna Akhmatova

De profundis… My generation
Had been fed without honey. Aft that
Just a wind sings in gloomy recession, 
And remembrance of them who is dead.
Our business have never been finished,
Our time had been marked by the end; 
‘Till the watershed of our wishing,
‘Till the spring’s top, that might be so grand,
‘Till the blooming with fiery passion –
There was distance in only one breath…
By two wars, my generation,
Had been lighted your awful path.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August 21, 2004
Corrected May-June 2008