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.

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.

Anna Ahkmatova