Don't taunt your heart with earthly joys,
Don't cleave to your wife and home,
Take the bread from your child's mouth,
So you can give it to a stranger.
Be the humblest servant of the man
Who was your bitterest enemy,
Call the woodland creatures kin,
And don't ask God for anything.
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Return to the Anna Akhmatova library , or . . . Read the next poem; 'Drink my soul, as if with a straw'