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“We shall not sip from the same glass …” by Anna Akhmatova 🇷🇺 (23 Jun 1889 – 5 Mar 1966)
Translated from the Russian by A. S. Kline
We shall not sip from the same glass,
No water for us, or sweet wine;
We’ll not embrace at morning,
Not gaze from the same sill at night;
You breathe the sun, I the moon,
Yet the one love keeps us alive.
​
Always with me, tender, true friend,
And your smiling friend’s with you.
But I know the pain in your grey eyes,
And my sickness is down to you, too.
In short, we mustn’t meet often,
To be certain of peace of mind.
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Yet it’s your voice sings in my poems,
And in your poems my breath sighs,
O, beyond the reach of distance or fear,
There is a fire …
And if you knew how dear to me
Are those dry, pale lips of yours now.