The secret of secrets is inside me again.

Sweet to me was not the voice of man, But the wind's voice was understood by me. The burdocks and the nettles fed my soul, But I loved the silver willow best of all.

This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from this course. Strayed from its familiar shores, my changeling life has flowed into a sister channel. How many spectacles I've missed: the curtain rising without me, and falling too. How many friends I never had the chance to meet.

Now no one will listen to songs. The prophesied days have begun. Latest poem of mine, the world has lost its wonder, Don't break my heart, don't ring out.

During the terrible years of the Yekhov terror I spent seventeen months in the prison queues in Leningrad. One day someone ‘identified’ me. Then a woman with lips blue with cold who was standing behind me, and of course had never heard of my name, came out of the numbness which affected us all and whispered in my ear—(we all spoke in whispers there): ‘Could you describe this?’ I said, ‘I can!’ Then something resembling a smile slipped over what had once been her face.

Real tenderness can't be confused, It's quiet and can't be heard.

We are all carousers and loose women here; How unhappy we are together!