We learned not to meet anymore, We don't raise our eyes to one another, But we ourselves won't guarantee What could happen to us in an hour.

The stars of death stood over us. And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed under the crunch of bloodstained boots, under the wheels of Black Marias.

Poems are my link with the times, with the new life of my people.

I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death, and something else I'd rather not recall just now.

It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.

As the future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future -- a terrible festival of dead leaves.

I go forth to seek To seek and claim the lovely magic garden Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.