«I feel my life hang by a hair / as I wait at night for the Muse; / youth, freedom, fame melt into air / as my guest appears with her flute. She enters, tosses back her shawl; / her half-closed eyes let nothing pass. / "So it was you who sang of Hell / to Dante?" "Yes," she says, "it wa...»
«Nothing, nothing will be returned; / love, forgiveness — unearned, unlearned; / though we can never learn to forget. Sweet is the sleep of an alien land. / We sense spring, hear the sea’s even sound / in this world of eternal torment.»
«for Osip Mandelstam All the town’s gripped in an icy fist. / Trees and walls and snow are set in glass. / I pick my timid way across the crystal. / Unsteadily the painted sledges pass. / Flocks of crows above St Peter’s, wheeling. / The dome amongst the poplars, green and pale in / ...»
«Nothing’s been taken away! / We’re apart — I’m delighted by this! / Across the hundreds of miles / that divide us, I send you my kiss. Our gifts, I know, are unequal. / For the first time my voice is still. / What, my young Derzhavin, do / you make of my doggrel? For your terri...»