Trinadtsat' strochek Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) I nakonets ty slovo proiznios Ne tak kak te, kto... na odno koleno, A tak kak tot, kto vyrvalsia iz plena I vidit ten' sviashchennuiu berioz Skvoz' radugu nevol'nykh slioz. I vkrug menia zapela tishina I chistym solntsem sumrak ozarilsia, I mir na mig odin preobrazilsia; I stranno izmenilsia vkus vina. I dazhe ia, komu ubiitsei byt' Bozhestvennogo slova predstoialo; Pochti blagogoveino zamolchala, Chtob zhizn' blagoslovennuiu prodlit'.

Thirteen lines translated from the Russian by Alexander Volokh, 1996 You said it to me after all these years, Not like the ones... who do it on one knee, But like a prisoner who's broken free, To whom the sacred shade of trees appears, Seen through the rainbow of his tears. The silence started singing next to you; The dusk, lit up by sunlight, brightly beckoned; The world appeared transformed for one brief second; The taste of wine was different and new. And even I, who knew what I would say, That I would kill the word divinely sung, I almost reverently held my tongue, The better to prolong that blessed day.

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