THE MUSE, By Anna Akhmatova
From "World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse From Antiquity to our Time," edited by Katharine Washburn and John S. Major (W.W. Norton: 118 pp., $45)
When in the night I await her coming,
My life seems stopped. I ask myself: What
Are tributes, freedom, or youth compared
To this treasured friend holding a flute?
Look, she’s coming! She throws off her veil
And watches me, steady and long. I say:
“Was it you who dictated to Dante the pages
Of Hell?” And she answers: “I am the one.”
--Translated from the Russian by Stanley Burnshaw
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