Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova, was a Russian modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth23 June 1889
CountryRussian Federation
sadness lamps sticks
Not, not mine: it's somebody else's wound; I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground; whisk the lamps away.
wings black betrayed
All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead.
night poetry ignorant
But Fear and the Muse in turn guard the place Where the banished poet has gone And the night that comes with quickened pace Is ignorant of dawn.
broken-heart angel night
You thought I was that type: that you could forget me, and that I'd plead and weep and throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare, or that I'd ask the sorcerers for some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift: my precious perfumed handkerchief. Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soul vicarious tears or a single glance. And I swear to you by the garden of the angels, I swear by the miracle-working ikon, and by the fire and smoke of our nights: I will never come back to you.
recalls knows
I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death, and something else I'd rather not recall just now.
forgiven knows
You do not know just what you've been forgiven.
together unhappy loose-women
We are all carousers and loose women here; How unhappy we are together!
secret tears moscow
The celebrations Of secret nonmeetings are empty, Unspoken conversations, Unuttered words. Glances that don't intersect Don't know where to come to rest. And only the tears rejoice Because they can flow and flow. Sweetbrier around Moscow, Alas! Somehow it is here ... And all this they will call Love eternal.
autumn garden years
Let whoever wants to, relax in the south, And bask in the garden of paradise. Here is the essence of north—and it's autumn I've chosen as this year's friend.
tonight thread
All that I am hangs by a thread tonight
wine sunset air
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 the sunset itself on such waves of ether That I just can't comprehend Whether it is the end of the day, the end of the world, Or the mystery of mysteries in me again.
garden magic lovely
I go forth to seek To seek and claim the lovely magic garden Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.
stones tests ready
The word dropped like a stone on my still living breast. Confess: I was prepared, am somehow ready for the test.
sky wings people
No, not under the vault of another sky, not under the shelter of other wings. I was with my people then, there where my people were doomed to be.