Anna Akhmatova

BROAD gold, the evening colors glow,

The April air is cool and tender.

You should have come ten years ago,

And yet in welcome I surrender.

Come here, sit closer in our nook,

And turn gay eyes at what my nurses

Might never glimpse: the blue-bound book

That holds my awkward childish verses.

Forgive me that I did not look

Sunward with joy, but dwelt with sorrow,

Forgive me all whom I mistook

For you, oblivious of the morrow.