Love is a guest by Osip Mandelstam

Was it not I who forged and  shackled my heart in winter?

Was it not I who turned my home into a prison sneezer?

Was it not I who said to love, "Farewell! Goodbye—

Do not return here until the  tender month of May"?

Love knocks at the door like a nighttime guest late,

And the heart bends once more like a reed-cane weight.

It burns and throbs against its own will, it feels the dart;

A wondrous child has pierced it deep so well to the heart.

He sleeps, my guest, in the hour before the next dawn;

The star is pale, like a fading yellowish topaz bijou stone.

It is not for me to wake him; he will wake in time, on his own,

Opening wide the wood doors to anew marvels wonderso.

I wait, I wait: the nebulous fear heaves within my breast.

Do not depart my  dearest guest: stay, oh stay that you must!