Anna Akhmatova

And you, my dear friends, ones of the last selection,
My life was saved to ever mourn you.
Not, like a willow, to cool in lamentation,
But cry your names the whole planet through!

But what of names!
                             We are together always!
All on your knees!...  All!
                                        Poured the purple flame!
And Leningraders stride again through smoke in rows –
Alive with dead ones -- none are dead for Fame.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, July, 2002