Anna Akhmatova Quotes

I have learned how faces fall to bone, how under the eyelids terror lurks, how suffering inscribes on cheeks the hard lines of its cuneiform texts, how glossy black or ash-fair locks turn overnight to tarnished silver, how smiles fade on submissive lips, and fear quavers in a dry titter. And I pray not for myself alone.. for all who stood outside the jail, in bitter cold or summer's blaze, with me under that blind red wall.

The Last Toast

I drink to our demolished hose,
to all this wickedness,
to you, our loneliness together,
I raise my glass -

And to the dead-cold eyes,
the lie that has betrayed us,
the coarse, brutal world, the fact
that God has not saved us.

1934

This woman is sick to her marrow-bone, this woman is utterly alone, with husband dead, with son away in jail. Pray for me. Pray.

It's all the same to me. The Yenisei swirls, the North Star shines, as it will shine forever; and the blue lustre of my loved one's eyes is clouded over by the final horror. — The House on the Fontanka, 19 August 1939

Don’t kiss me, I am weary -
Death will kiss me.

Beyond the lake the waning moon has slowed,
And stands there like a window open wide
Into a hushed and brightly lit abode
Where something dreadful has occurred inside.

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.

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 burning tenderness—all this
I bestow upon you, messenger of dawn.
Also the glory for which I was born,
For which my star, like some whirlwind, soared
And now falls. Look, its falling
Prophesies your power, love and inspiration.
Preserving my generous bequest,
You will live long and worthily.
Thus it will be. You see, I am content,
Be happy, but remember me.

For seventeen months I have cried aloud calling you back to your lair. I hurled myself at the hangman's foot. You are my son, changed into nightmare. Confusion occupies the world, and I am powerless to tell somebody brute from something human, or on what day the word spells, "Kill!"

All that I am hangs by a thread tonight

Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed, His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared. His mother stood apart. No other looked into her secret eyes. Nobody dared. — 1940-1943

"True Tenderness"

True tenderness is silent
and can't be mistaken for anything else.
In vain with earnest desire
you cover my shoulders with fur;
In vain you try to persuade me
of the merits of first love.
But I know too well the meaning
of your persistent burning glances.

Now you're gone, and nobody says a word about your troubled and exalted life. Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn at your dumb funeral feast.

I go forth to seek — To seek and claim the lovely magic garden Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.

- Lot's Wife