'All Is Sold, All Is Lost' by Anna Akhmatova

[aquamarcia.livejournal.com]

All Is Sold, All Is Lost

All is sold, all is lost, all is plundered,
Death's wing has flashed black on our sight,
All's gnawed bare with sore want and sick longing,—
Then how are we graced with this light?

By day the town breathes a deep fragrance
Of cherry from woods none descries;
By night new and strange constellations
Shine forth in the pale summer skies.

And these houses, this dirt, these mean ruins,
Are touched by the miracle, too;
It is close: the desired, despaired of,
That all longed for, but none ever knew.

by Anna Akhmatova
translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky
from Russian Poetry: An Anthology, published in 1927 by International Publishers Co., Inc.

Comments

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and appropriate.