Bella Akhmadulina
The Volcanoes

Extinct volcanoes brood in silence.
Ash scatters down into their keep.
Reposing from their evil deeds,
the giants now are sunk in sleep.

A growing chill pervades their realm.
Their shoulders hunch under the strain.
But, as before, their sinful visions
come haunting them at night again.

They dream of a city doomed to perish
that has no inkling of its fate,
of basalt hardening into columns,
and gardens framed in lava’s spate.

Girls fill their arms with flowers there,
flowers that bloomed a time ago.
Bacchantes lure the men who sip
cool wine beneath a portico.

The feast’s begun; excitement mounts
and stupifies, and speech grows coarse.
O my lovely girl, Pompeii, child
begotten of a slave and empress!

A captive of your oozy fate,
what were you thinking, and of whom,
when you so bravely leaned upon
Vesuvius for some elbow room.

Rapt by the stories he was telling,
you stared big-eyed in terror,
unable to resist the peals
of his overbearing ardor.

At the close of day, it came about,
he fell and pressed his brightest brow
to your already lifeless feet,
and burst out with: “Forgive me now!”

Translated by George Reavey