Anna Akhmatova Quotes

That was a time when only the dead could smile, delivered from their wars, and the sign, the soul, of Leningrad dangled outside its prison-house...

Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?

By day, a mysterious wood, near the town,
breathes out cherry, a cherry perfume.
By night, on July’s sky, deep, and transparent,
new constellations are thrown.

And something miraculous will come
close to the darkness and ruin,
something no-one, no-one, has known,
though we’ve longed for it since we were children.

Autumn, whispering through the maples,
Pleaded: 'Die here with me!

And in the depths of music, I didn’t find the answer,
And again there was silence, and again the ghost
of summer.

I know beginnings, I know endings too,
and life-in-death, and something else
I'd rather not recall just now.

You’re the sinner, seeing the heavenly,
Sweetest dream, before passing away…

Now no one will listen to songs. The prophesied days have begun. Latest poem of mine, the world has lost its wonder, Don't break my heart, don't ring out.

He left his soul behind and told me:
It’ll be safer by your side.

It is good here: rustle and snow-crunch...
Ski tracks on the splendid finery
of the snow; a memory
that long ages ago
we passed here together.

Wild honey smells of freedom
The dust - of sunlight
The mouth of a young girl, like a violet
But gold - smells of nothing.

If you were a star, I would gaze by the window till dawn

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.

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 graveyard we sit on a frozen branch.

That stick in your hand is tracing
Mansions in the snow in which we will always be together.

Call me a sinner,
Mock me maliciously:
I was your insomnia,
I was your grief.

Whether to look for you on earth — I don't know if you're dead or you live — Or about you in the evening
I should for you, departed, grieve.

All is for you: and the daily prayer
And the sleeplessness' swooning flame
And the white flock of my poems
And my eyes' blue violent flame.

No one was dearer to me, no one,
No one left me this bereft,
Not even he who betrayed me to torment,
Not even he who caressed, then left.