About Anna Akhmatova: Anna Andreyevna Gorenko was a Russian modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.
Flowers, cold from the dew, And autumn's approaching breath, I pluck for the warm, luxuriant braids, Which haven't faded yet. In their nights, fragrantly resinous, Entwined with delightful mystery, They will breathe in her springlike Extraordinary be...
Let whoever wants to, relax in the south, And bask in the garden of paradise. Here is the essence of northand it's autumn I've chosen as this year's friend.
And you know, I agree to everything: I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy, Darkness will be light and sin lovely.
Though you are three times more beautiful than angels, Though you are the sister of the river willows, I will kill you with my singing, Without spilling your blood on the ground. Not touching you with my hand, Not giving you one glance, I will stop l...
Let my heiress have full rights, Live in my house, sing songs that I composed. Yet how slowly my strength ebbs, How the tortured breast craves air. The love of my friends, my enemies' rancor And the yellow roses in my bushy garden, And a lover's burn...
This land, although not my native land, Will be remembered forever. And the sea's lightly iced, Unsalty water. The sand on the bottom is whiter than chalk, The air is heady, like wine, And the rosy body of the pines Is naked in the sunset hour. And t...
I seem to myself, as in a dream, An accidental guest in this dreadful body.
I have a lot of work to do today; I need to slaughter memory, Turn my living soul to stone Then teach myself to live again.
This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from this course. Strayed from its familiar shores, my changeling life has flowed into a sister channel. How many spectacles I've missed: the curtain rising without me, and falling too. How many friends I...
If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly, and my low spirits would brighten up.
We don't know how to say goodbye, We wander on, shoulder to shoulder Already the sun is going down You're moody, and I am your shadow. Let's step inside a church, hear prayers, masses for the dead Why are we so different from the rest? Outside in the...
You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.
I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry; poetry and love and again, complete chaos. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry. Sheer enchantment, fear, humiliation. It all comes with love
On the third day Vera said: 'I love your body because it is beautiful. But I do not know your soul. I do not know whether there is a soul. Nor is it necessary for me because your body is beautiful. But everything is mutable and you will grow old. At ...
So age after age — will it be soon, O Lord? — Beneath the scalpel of nature and art, Our spirit screams, our flesh depletes itself, Giving birth to an organ for the sixth sense. ("The Sixth Sense")
If there exist fortunate people, if from time to time the wild sun of joy soars towards foreign lands in a sweet whirling of ecstasy — then where are the words which might tell of this? And if in the world there exists a beauty for enchantment, the...
Beauty is frightening," they will tell you — Lazily you will arrange A Spanish shawl on your shoulders, A red rose in your hair. "Beauty is simple," they will tell you — Clumsily with a motley shawl You will cover a child up, A red rose on the fl...
My double drags his coffin, humble slave, I, at least, am real, though changed to flesh. Far-off, I build me a church no hand can shape ("Winter Sonnets: III")
I often think about this, that is, I imagine to myself that here is Vera, dead, totally motionless, lying on the table, in a coffin... and I too, of course can no longer live. But for some reason this gives me pleasure, a terrible amount of pleasure ...
Inside my soul a treasure is buried. The key is mine and only mine. How right you are, you drunken monster! I know: the truth is in the wine. ("The Unknown Lady")
