Anna Akhmatova

From under what deaf ruins I speak rhyme, 
From under what an avalanche cry out: 
Like I am burning in the white quicklime
Under the volts of chambers underground.

I’ll simulate a winter, mute and lost,
And close, fast, the ever opened entrance,
But they will hear my alone voice,
And trust in it will be their final sentence.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2002