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154
Anna Akhmatova
PRAYER
Give me comfortless seasons of sickness,
Visitations of wrath and of wrong
On my house; Lord, take child and companion,
And destroy the sweet power of song.
Thus I pray at each matins, each vespers,
After these many wearying days,
That the storm-cloud which broods over Russia
May be changed to a nimbus ablaze.
