ANNA AKHMATOVA: "To Sleep In Deep Sadness..."

"To Sleep In Deep Sadness..."

(From "The Moon in Zenith")
1942-1944, Tashkent

1
To sleep in deep sadness,
To wake in love’s madness,
To see how red tulips are!
Some wonderful mightiness
Was entering darkness
For its most sacred altar!
Little yard of a brazier, 
Your fume’s like a razor,
And how your poplar is tall…
And there Shahrezada
Is going from garden…
And such is the old East in all!


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, January, 2002