Anna Akhmatova

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