Marina Tsvetaeva
To Akhmatova

Your stripe will be harvested
By which person's arms?
O the black magician you!
My black-plaited one!

Your tumultuous century,
And your midnight days...
All your little workers are
At once born away.

Where are your campaigner friends,
Your comrades in arms?
O the black magician you,
My one with white arms!

Not with glory, not with tears
Can one heal those graves.
One, as though he had been choked,
Walked around alive.

One more went into a wall
Himself to advance.
(He was proud - a falcon!) - They
Knocked him out at once.

High above your brothers are!
Can't exude a cry!
O the black magician you,
My one with clear eyes!

And from out the cloud (praise
Marvel from above!)
Arrow of a falcon falls,
Arrow of a dove...

To know, in two feathers at once
People to you write,
Know, that soon you will receive
A certificate,

O the boulders! They will shake
With their wings,
O the black magician you!
My one with black wings!

Translated by Ilya Shambat