Anna Akhmatova

I do not deserve this praise, rather,
And Sappho doesn’t matter in that,
I know the reason another,
But nothing of it can be read.
Let somebody save self by running,
And others – by nods from their ‘bliss’.
These poems were all underlying
With text, that’s like look in abyss.
And this abyss calls and pulls down,
For ages you’ll not find its floor,
For ages will not fail to sound
Dead silence that lays you before. 


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, July, 2002