let me drink some kind of poison That will make me mute

Memory of love, you are painful! 

I must sing and burn in your smoke, 

But for others—you're just a flame 

To warm a cooling soul. 

 

To warm a sated body, 

They needed my tears...

For this, Lord, I sang, 

For this I received love's communion! 

 

Let me drink some kind of poison 

That will make me mute, 

And turn my infamous fame 

Into radiant oblivion. 

 

[Anna Akhmatova {1889-1966} 'Memory of love' {trans. from the Russian by Judith Hemschemeyer}, from Love Poems {Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets}]