Quotes from Anna Akhmatova

In vain you whisper sweet lies About falling under love's spell, Your stubborn and hungry eyes, - I'm afraid, I know them too well!

Forgive me that I felt forsaken, That grief and angst were all I knew. Forgive me that I kept mistaking Too many other men for you.

She enters, and before I can discern her, She stares at me with an attentive eye. "Were you," I ask, "the cause of the Inferno For Dante?" – And she answers: "I.

Ancient city is as if dead, Strange's my coming here. Vladimir has raised a black cross Over the river. Noisy elm trees, noisy lindens In the gardens dark, Raised to God, the needle-bearing Stars' bright diamond sparks. Sacrificial and glorious Way, I am ending here, With me is but you, my equal, And my love so dear.

I've come to see the resolution, And I must cede the throne And hearken to my own delusion As if it ceased to be my own.

Magdalene wept in a furious daze, The dear disciple stood still, like a stone.

It seems as though the voice of man Will never sound in this place, But only wind from age of stone Is knocking on black gates. It seems to me that I alone Have kept good health under this sky, Because of this, that first I sought To drink the deadly wine. Parting, Evening and slanting, Downward goes my way. Yesterday in love still, "Don't forget" you prayed. Now there's only shepherds' Cry, and glancing winds, And the worried cedars Stand by clear springs.

Did not scold me, did not praise me, Like friends and like enemies. Only left his soul to me And then said, "Now keep in peace." And one thing worries me so: If this moment he will die, God's archangel will come to me For his soul from the sky. How then will I hide her so, How to hide it from God's eyes? She, the soul, that cries and sings so Must be in His paradise.

I see capital through the flurry On this Monday night twenty-first. Some do-nothing has made up the story That love exists on the earth. And from laziness or from boredom All believed, and thus they live: Wait for meeting, fear the parting, And sing songs of love. But to others opens a secret And upon them descends a still. I by accident came upon this And since then am as if I'm ill.

Not thus, from cursed lightness having disembarked, I look with worry on the chambers dark? Already used to ringing high and raw, Already judged not by the earthly law, I, like a criminal, am being drawn along To place of shame and execution long. I see the glorious city, and the voice most dear, As though there is no secret grave to fear, Where day and night, in heat and in cold bent, I must await the Final Judgment...

All promised him to me: The heaven's edge, dark and kind, And lovely Christmas sleep And multi-ringing Easter wind, And the red branches of a twig, And waterfalls inside a park, And two dragonflies On rusty iron of a bulwark. And I could not disbelieve, That he'll befriend me all alone When on the mountain slopes I went Along hot pathway made of stone.

I was born not late and not early, This time is blessed and meet, Only God did not allow a heart To live long without deceit. And from this it is dark in the light room, And from this do the friends I've sought, Like the sorrowful birds of evening, Sing of love that was not.

I will lead a man to dear one -- I don't want the little joy -- And I'll quietly lay to sleep The glad, tired little boy. In a chilly room once more I will pray to Mother of God, It is hard to be a hermit, To be happy is also hard. Only fiery sleep will come to me, I'll enter a temple on the hill, Five-domed, white, and stone-hewn, On the paths remembered well.

Oh, there are unrepeated words, Who ever said wasted more than he should. Inexhaustible only is the blue Of sky and generosity of God.

Divine angel, who betrothed us Secretly on winter morn, From our sadness-free existence Does not take his darkened eyes. For this reason we love sky, And fresh wind, and air so thin, And the dark tree branches Behind fence of iron. For this reason we love the strict, Many-watered, and dark city, And we love the parting, And brief meetings' hour.

An as it's going often at love's breaking, The ghost of first days came again to us, The silver willow through window then stretched in, The silver beauty of her gentle branches. The bird began to sing the song of light and pleasure To us, who fears to lift looks from the earth, Who are so lofty, bitter and intense, About days when we were saved together.

Now the pillow's Hot on both sides. A second candle Dies, the ravens cry Endlessly. No sleep all night, Too late to think of sleep… How unbearably white The blind's white deep. Hello, Morning!

None of the places where I grew up and live in my youth exist any longer: Tsarskoe Selo, Sevastopol, Kiev, Slepnyovo, Gungerburg (Ust-Narova). The following have survived: Khersones (because it is eternal), Paris - by somebody's oversight, and Petersburg-Leningrad, so that there would be a place to lay my head.

I cannot tell if the day; is ending, or the world, or if; the secret of secrets is inside me again.

But on that pale hand is no ring of mine, To no one will I give it, ever. The new moon's golden beam forged it for me, And slipping it on in my sleep, whispered to me entreatingly; "Treasure this gift, be proud of the dream!" I won't give the ring to anyone, ever.

Isn't it the sea? No, it's only graveyard Pine-needles, and in a boiling of foam, Still closer,closer... Marche funèbre

Tú no sabes que has sido perdonado

The heart beats steadily, more certain.

Like thick and tangled hair Of Magdalenes half-crazed.