Created •
by Anna Akhmatova
- You are always novel and mysterious,
I am more submissive with each day.
But your love, oh my exacting lover,
Is a trial by iron and fire.
You forbid singing and smiling,
And praying you forbade long ago.
As long as we don't separate,
Let everything else go!
Thus, a stranger to heaven and earth,
I live and no longer sing,
It's as if you cut off my wandering soul
From both paradise and hell.
December 1917
from The Complete Poems of ANNA AKHMATOVA Expanded Edition
Translated by JUDITH HEMSCHEMEYER, Edited by Roberta Reeder
