Translation of Poem by Anna Akhmatova, Анна Ахматова, "Слаб голос мой, но воля не слабеет," MY VOICE IS WEAK

 

Анна Ахматова
(1889-1966)

Слаб голос мой, но воля не слабеет,
Мне даже легче стало без любви.
Высоко небо, горный ветер веет,
И непорочны помыслы мои.

Ушла к другим бессонница-сиделка,
Я не томлюсь над серою золой,
И башенных часов кривая стрелка
Смертельной мне не кажется стрелой.

Как прошлое над сердцем власть теряет!
Освобожденье близко. Все прощу,
Следя, как луч взбегает и сбегает
По влажному весеннему плющу.

1912

d

Literal Translation by Judith Hemschemeyer
(with amendations in brackets by URB)
 
Weak is my voice, but my will isn’t weakening,
It’s even become easier for me without love.
The sky is sublime [high], a mountain wind is blowing,
And my thoughts are pure [chaste].
 
Insomnia, my nightnurse, is visiting elsewhere,
I’m not brooding by a cold hearth,
And the crooked hand of the tower clock
Doesn’t look like the arrow of death.
 
How the past loses power over the heart!
Liberation is at hand. I forgive everything.
I’m keeping track of a sunbeam running up and down
The first moist ivy of spring.
 

d

 

Literary Translation by Rupert Moreton

My voice is weak, but not my resolution,
A loveless life is easier for me.
The sky is high, from hill breathes absolution
And from all accusation I am free.

The night-nurse of insomnia has departed,
The ashen sulphur’s ceased to cause me pain,
Though towers’ crooked handed clocks have charted,
To death they seem to me to point in vain.

The heart from past has sealed its liberation!
All is forgiven. Freedom now is mine.
I’m watching now the playing ray’s gyration
Along the sodden springtime ivy’s twine.

d

                                             Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

My voice is weak, my will, though, does not weaken,
I’m even now at ease, without love’s pain.
Lofty’s the sky, the highland winds browbeaten,
Chaste are my thoughts and ever less profane. 
 
My night nurse called Insomnia has departed,
I’m languishing no longer over grayness of the ash,
And that crooked hand on tower clock contorted
Seems not so deathly lethal with its gnash. 
 
How quick the past its grip on heartstrings looses! 
All’s forgiven now, for liberation’s near,
Watching how a light ray runs, suffuses
Sodden vernal ivy twines austere.