Anna Akhmatova
Bezhetsk

White churches stand tall and there’s resonant, glistening ice,
And the cornflower-blue is abloom in my son’s precious gaze.
Nights strung with diamonds hang high on the ancient town’s heights,
More yellow than linden-flower honey the sickle-moon’s rays.

Dry blizzards blow in from the fields past the faraway river,
And people, like angels, rejoice in the Lord’s Holy Day.
They’ve tidied the parlor, lit icon lamps, flames all aquiver;
They’ve placed the Good Book on a table of oak, and they pray.

There dour-faced memory, forthrightness now apt to abhor,
Did open her sanctum sanctorum and bowed low to me;
But I ventured not in, and I slammed shut the hideous door,
While the town was suffused with the bells of Nativity’s glee.

Translated by U. R. Bowie