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

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova