The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

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

You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

I seem to myself, as in a dream, An accidental guest in this dreadful body.

Your voice is wild and simple. You are untranslatable Into any one tongue.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You invented me. There is no such earthly being, Such an earthly being there could never be. A doctor cannot cure, a poet cannot comfort— A shadowy apparition haunts you night and day. We met in an unbelievable year, When the world's strength was at an ebb, Everything withered by adversity, And only the graves were fresh. Without streetlights, the Neva's waves were black as pitch, Thick night enclosed me like a wall ... That's when my voice called out to you! Why it did—I still don't understand. And you came to me, as if guided by a star That tragic autumn, stepping Into that irrevocably ruined house, From whence had flown a flock of burnt verse.

Regarding myself as a mere echo, Cave-like, unintelligible and nocturnal . . .

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.

Song falls silent, music is dumb, But the air burns with their fragrance, And white winter, on its knees, Observes everything with reverent attention.

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.

Now that you're there, where everything is known—tell me: What else lived in that house besides us?

And this tenderness was not like That which a certain poet At the beginning of the century called true And, for some reason, quiet. No, not at all— It rang out, like the first waterfall, It crunched like the crust of bluish ice And it prayed with a swanlike voice, And it broke down right before our eyes.

All that I am hangs by a thread tonight

We are all carousers and loose women here; How unhappy we are together!

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.

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.

No other looked into her secret eyes. Nobody dared.

I defend Not my voice, but my silence