Unworn in incense holders on the chest,
Deprived of touching poetry addressed,
Unmet, by startling chance, in dreams alarming,
Unseen as heaven, promising and charming,
Anticipated never in our heart
To be a matter of a bid or sale,
Not for a moment caught, paid no regard
By those us sick, impoverished and stale.
True, to us, it is mud on a boot.
True, to us, it is grit on our teeth.
So we grind, mash and crush with a foot
All that innocent loam beneath.
But we lie in it, and we become it, as known,
That's the reason we call it so freely, "our own".
Original: www.stihi-rus.ru/1/Ahmatova/142-1.htm