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Under a dark veil she wrung her hands...
Translation by Colette Bryce
Under a dark veil she wrung her hands...
‘What makes you grieve like this?’
I have made my lover drunk
with a bitter sadness.
I'll never forget it. He left, reeling,
his mouth twisted, desolate...
I ran downstairs, ran into the courtyard,
managed to catch him opening the gate
and begged him: ‘It was all a joke, don't leave,
please... I will lose my mind!’
But he only smiled, calmly, terribly,
and said to me: ‘Get inside out of the wind.’
1911
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- About the translation:
- » Read translator's notes
- Poet:
- Anna Akhmatova
- Translator:
- Colette Bryce
- Original language:
- Russian
- Issue:
- Series 3 No. 3 - Metamorphoses
Original poem
About the authors
Poet
Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) is considered Russia’s greatest modern poet. She published her first book of poems in 1912, and in...
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Colette Bryce
Colette Bryce (born 1970) is a critically-acclaimed poet from Derry, Northern Ireland. She has published three collections wi...
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