Thursday, 12 May 2011

I came here, in idleness . Anna Akhmatova






I came here, in idleness.

Where I’m bored: all the same to me!
A sleepy hilltop mill, yes,
here years pass silently.

Over convolvulus gone dry
the bee swims past, ahead,
I call to that mermaid by
the pond: the mermaid’s dead.

Thick with mud, and rusted,
the wide pond’s shallows:
over the trembling aspen
a weightless moon glows.

I see everything freshly.
The poplars smell moist.
I’m silent. Silent, ready
to be yours again, earth.


By Anna Akhmatova, Translated by A. S. Kline 

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