Anna Akhmatova

So many stones flew at me all times,
That no one of them now is feared.
Into the tower, peer to the highest ones,
Is changed a trap, before for me contrived.
I grateful to builders of high walls,
Let them be missed by sadness and by troubles.
From here I early see the scarlet downs,
Here celebrate the last beams of the sunsets.
And oft through windows, with which my chamber sees, 
Flow in the fresh winds of the northern seas;
A dove eats wheat from my hand, calmly sittin’,
And the same page that was not fully written,
Will be forth written to its happy end
By blessed, calm, light and swarthy Muse’s hand. 


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2002