Anna Akhmatova

Thank you, God: I dream of him more seldom,
And don’t see him now in every place,
The white path with clouds has been laden,
Easy shadows o’er the waters raced.
And all day the chime of bells arose
O’er the ocean of the ploughed soil;
Here the toll is best-heard from Saint John’s 
Belfries which are seen afar, the tall.
I am cutting off the lilac fashioned 
For the brunches that have lost their bloom;
Two black monks passed by in conversation
On the ramparts to the aging doomed. 
Let, for blind me, the plain, dear and earthly
World again be turned into alive.
Our Lord has made my soul healthy
With the icy calm of the non-love. 


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, October 13, 2004
Corrected May-June 2008