but more tender than a sister

O poetry month, wherefore art thou so soon ended? Here is my favorite translation of one of my favorite poems by Anna Akhmatova. I suspect it is not the most accurate version--some of the word choices are downright puzzling--but I am particularly fond of the last stanza as rendered by this translator.

A log bridge blackened and twisted.
The burdocks stand as high as a man.
The thick nettle forests sing that
the scythe will not flash through them.
In the evening over the lake a sigh is heard,
rough moss has crawled over the walls.

There I was
twenty-one.
The black, stifling honey
was sweet to the lips.

The twigs tore
my white silk dress,
the nightingale sang unceasingly
on the crooked pine.

At a given call
he came out of hiding,
like a wild wood-spirit,
but more tender than a sister.

Run over the plain,
swim across the river,
then afterwards,
I will not say leave me.

(1917. Tr. Richard McKane. p. 56, Anna Akhmatova: Selected Poems. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. Originally published in Anno Domini.)