Anna Akhmatova Quotes

I hear always the sad voices of summer passing like red winged birds over the high grass

Seaside gusts of wind,
And a house in which we don't live,
And the shadow of a cherished cedar
In front of a forbidden window...
Perhaps there is someone in this world
To whom I could send all these lines. Well then!
Let the lips smile bitterly
And a tremor touch the heart again.

"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.

Why is it that you still beguile me –
As wind, stone, bird – and all the likes?
Why is that you smile on me –
With sudden summer lightning strikes?

And it seemed to me that there were fires
Flying till dawn without number
And I never found out things-those
Strange eyes of his-what colour?

Everything trembling and singing and
Were you my enemy or my friend,
Winter was it or summer?

As a white stone in the well's cool deepness, There lays in me one wonderful remembrance. I am not able and don't want to miss this: It is my torture and my utter gladness. I think, that he whose look will be directed Into my eyes, at once will see it whole.

A solitary sorceress: her shadow is still visible on the eve of the new moon.

He loved three things
in this life:
Vespers, white peacocks,
And old maps of America,
Didn't love children crying,
Raspberries with tea,
Or feminine hysteria
...And I
was his wife.

Muse

When at night I wait for her to come,
Life, it seems, hangs by a single strand.
What are glory, youth, freedom, in comparison
with the dear welcome guest, a flute in hand?

She enters now. Pushing her veil aside,
she stares through me with her attentiveness.
I question her: 'And were you Dante's guide,
dictating the Inferno?' She answers: 'Yes.

Sentirai il tuono e mi rammenterai,
penserai: desiderava la bufera...
Sarà una striscia di cielo accesa di rosso,
e il cuore come allora in fiamme.
E ciò accadrà nel giorno moscovita
in cui abbandonerò per sempre la città,
muoverò verso il bramato riparo,
lasciando in mezzo a voi ancora la mia ombra.

I've learned to live simply, wisely

I've learned to live simply, wisely,
To look at the sky and pray to God,
And to take long walks before evening
To wear out this useless anxiety.

When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
And the yellow-red clusters of rowan nod,
I compose happy verses
About mortal life, mortal and beautiful life.

I return. The fluffy cat
Licks my palm and sweetly purrs.
And on the turret of the sawmill by the lake
A bright flame flares.

The quiet is cut, occasionally,
By the cry of a stork landing on the roof.
And if you were to knock at my door,
It seems to me I wouldn't even hear.
(English version by Judith Hemschemeyer
Original Language Russian)

No one else was as close and as open,
No one else so boiled my blood,
Even he, who consigned me to torment,
Even he, who caressed and forgot.

Έχω σήμερα πολλές δουλειές. Για μέτρα:
πρέπει κάθε μνήμη ευθύς να σκοτωθεί
πρέπει την καρδιά να κάνω πέτρα
πρέπει πάλι τη ζωή να μάθω απ' την αρχή.

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.

In the black sky no star is seen, somewhere in ambush lurks the Angel of Death, but the spices tongues of the masqueraders are loose and shameless A shout: "Make way for the hero!" Ah yes. Displacing the tall one, he will step forth now without fail and sing to us about holy vengeance...