Anna Akhmatova
- It’s thus I prayed..., by Andrey Kneller
- This way I prayed..., by Ilya Shambat
(This way I prayed: "Slake the dumb thirst...)
«O you — of all below-line notes / The lowest! — Let's put an end to our quarrel! / Like that consumptive woman, who moaned / All night: ravish me again! Who wrung her hands, as fights / And close blows and ropes of oaths intruded. / (Her sailor — no longer handsome — slept / As...»
«The cry of stations: don't go! / Of terminals: take pity! / And that of the brief stops: / Not exactly Dante's / Benediction: / "Abandon hope!" / And that of the engines. Whose iron shuddered / Like the thunder of an ocean wave. / At the tiny ticket-window, / It crossed my mind ...»
«Blanch — faced / Guardian of the age-old lapping — / Knight, knight, / Keeping watch on the river. (O could I find peace / In it from arms and mouths?!) / Sen — ti — nel / Set at your post of partings. The oaths, the rings... / Yes, like stones into the river / How many —...»
«If not a bayonet — then a tusk, a snowbank, a squall, — / On the hour, another train — to Immortality! / I came and knew one thing: it's just another stop. / And not worth unpacking. Upon everyone, everything — my indifferent eyes, / Come to rest — on the immemorial. / O how n...»