Dedication

"Dedication" by Anna Andreevna Akhmatova

Mountains bow down to this grief,
Mighty rivers cease to flow,
but the prison gates hold firm.
And behind them are the "prisoners' burrows"
And mortal woe.
For somewone a fresh breeze blows,
For someone the sunset luxuriates--
We wouldn't know, we are those who are everywhere
Hear only the rasp of that hateful key
And the soldiers' heavy tread.
We rose as if for an early service,
trudged through the savaged capital
And met there, more lifeless than the dead;
The sun is lower and the Neva mistier,
But hope keeps singing from afar.
The verdict... And her tears gush forth,
Already she is cut off from the rest,
as if they painfully wrenched life from her heart,
As if they brutally knocked her flat,
But she goes on... Staggering... Alone
Where now are my chance friends
Of those two diabolical years?
What do they imagine in Siberia's storms,
What appears to them dimly in the circle of the moon?
I am sending my farewell greeting to them.

(March 1940)