Anna Akhmatova Quotes - Page 2

Forgive me, that I manage badly, Manage badly but live gloriously, That I leave traces of myself in my songs, That I appeared to you in waking dreams.

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.

The word landed with a stony thud Onto my still-beating breast. Nevermind, I was prepared, I will manage with the rest. 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. . . But how. The hot summer rustles Like a carnival outside my window; I have long had this premonition Of a bright day and a deserted house.

If you were music I would listen to you ceaselessly And my low spirits would brighten up.

We learned not to meet anymore, We don't raise our eyes to one another, But we ourselves won't guarantee What could happen to us in an hour.

Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.

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.

I am not one of those who left the land to the mercy of its enemies. Their flattery leaves me cold, my songs are not for them to praise.

I have long had this premonition of a bright day and a deserted house

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 loving you, But with your unimaginable groans I will finally slake my thirst. From her, who wandered the earth before me, Crueler than ice, more fiery than flame, From her, who still exists in the ether— From her you will set me free.

How the miracle of our meeting Shone there and sang, I didn't want to return From there to anywhere. Happiness instead of duty Was bitter delight to me. Not obliged to speak to anyone, I spoke for a long while. Let passions stifle lovers, Demanding answers, We, my dear, are only souls At the limits of the world.

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.

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.

Sweet to me was not the voice of man, But the wind's voice was understood by me. The burdocks and the nettles fed my soul, But I loved the silver willow best of all.

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.

All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead.

A land not mine, still forever memorable, the waters of its ocean chill and fresh. Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk, and the air drunk, like wine, late sun lays bare the rosy limbs of the pinetrees. Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.

That was when the ones who smiled Were the dead, glad to be at rest.

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 never had the chance to meet.

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 beauty. But in a whirlwind of sound and fire, From her shing head they will flutter And fall—and before her They will die, faintly fragrant still. And, impelled by faithful longing, My obedient gaze will feast upon them— With a reverent hand, Love will gather their rotting remains.

We aged a hundred years, and this happened in a single hour: the short summer had already died, the body of the ploughed plains smoked.

The stars of death stood over us. And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed under the crunch of bloodstained boots, under the wheels of Black Marias.

The triumphs of a mysterious non-meeting are desolate ones; unspoken phrases, silent words.

In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me . . . and asked me in a whisper . . . "Can you describe this?" And I said: "I can."

But here, in the murk of conflagration, where scarcely a friend is left to know we, the survivors, do not flinch from anything, not from a single blow. Surely the reckoning will be made after the passing of this cloud. We are the people without tears, straighter than you ... more proud.