Anna Akhmatova
This wintry city where I wandered...

This wintry city where I wandered,
A child, my youthful heart entranced —
What is it but a fortune squandered,
A gained and lost inheritance!

All that came easily and lightly
And that was spent with equal ease —
The fire of soul, the prayers that nightly
Poured out from it, the first song’s bliss —

All, all, in minors’ depths decaying,
Has gone, is now of haze a streak.
The noseless fiddler — hear him playing! —
Of the irreparable speaks.

But like a foreigner, elated
At hearing Russian speech am I,
And watch, absorbed and fascinated,
The horsedrawn sledges past me fly.

Joy’s breath is full of savage freshness,
A strength that sweeps all else aside.
Is someone dear to me and precious
The staircase mounting at my side?..

Translated by Irina Zheleznova