Anna Akhmatova

We all became by hundreds years older,
And this was happened through an hour one:
Was smoking the planes’ deeply plugged body –
The summer, short, was ready to be gone.

At once, a road grew the strongly various,
And a cry flew there, with a silver ring,
With closed eyes, I prayed our Father, greatest,
To take my life before first battle stings.

And from my memory, like weight from now helpless,
Vanished a shade of passions, songs and thoughts,
It, now empty, was decreed by Heavens
To be the awful book of fatal words


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2002