My Voice is Weak

Слаб голос мой, но воля не слабеет,
Мне даже легче стало без любви.
Высоко небо, горный ветер веет,
И непорочны помыслы мои.

Ушла к другим бессонница-сиделка,
Я не томлюсь над серою золой,
И башенных часов кривая стрелка
Смертельной мне не кажется стрелой.

Как прошлое над сердцем власть теряет!
Освобожденье близко. Все прощу,
Следя, как луч взбегает и сбегает
По влажному весеннему плющу.

 --Анна Ахматова 

 1912

My voice is weak, but will will never weaken.
Without love, I’m more at ease, I’m sure.
The sky is high, the mountain wind is sweeping,
And all my thoughts are innocent and pure.

My nurse-insomnia has moved on down the block,
Gray ashes do not cut me to the marrow,
The crooked arrow of the tower’s clock
No longer seems to me a lethal arrow.

The past’s authority over the heart is ending!
My freedom’s near. I’ll pardon all with time,
Watching a ray ascending and descending 
Atop the moistened surface of a vine.


--Translation by Andrey Kneller

My voice is weak but not my will,
It’s better even without love.
High skies and mountain winds,
And my thoughts now innocent.

Insomnia, my nurse, is elsewhere.
I’m not brooding by cold ashes.
And the curved hand on the tower clock,
Is no longer a deadly arrow.

How the past loses power over the heart!
Freedom is near. Everything’s simple,
See how the sunlight falls across
The wet ivy this spring.

--Translated by A. S. Kline