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Anna Akhmatova QUOTES

Anna Akhmatova QUOTES

1 " 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. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

2 " 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. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

3 " 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. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

4 " As the future ripens in the past,
so the past rots in the future --
a terrible festival of dead leaves. "

― Anna Akhmatova , Poems of Akhmatova

5 " 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. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

6 " I’m happy. But some beauty is nonesuch -
The gently sloping path across the wood,
The wretched bridge that’s just a little skewed
And that, for which, I won’t be waiting much. "

― Anna Akhmatova , White Flock

7 " My shadow serves as the friend I crave. "

― Anna Akhmatova

8 " Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure.
The sky is high, the mountain wind is sweeping,
And all my thoughts are innocent and pure. "

― Anna Akhmatova , Poems of Akhmatova

9 " I marvel at everything as if it were new. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

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

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

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

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

12 " I know: yes, no, even I must tear off
The delicate daisy petals.
Everyone on earth is destined to feel
The torments of love. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

13 " For this gloomy beast within my breast -
A heart. But the thing is,
We've all had to learn not to sleep for three years.
In the morning we shall find out
Who has died in the night. "

― Anna Akhmatova , Anna Akhmatova

14 " 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. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

15 " Forgive me that I felt forsaken,
That grief and angst was all I knew.
Forgive me that I kept mistaking
Too many other men for you. "

― Anna Akhmatova , White Flock

16 " 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. "

― Anna Akhmatova , White Flock

17 " I’m not weeping, I’m not complaining,
Happiness is not for me. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

18 " All's taken away: my love and my power.
The body, thrown into city it hates,
Finds no joy in the sunlight. With every hour
The blood grows colder in my veins. "

― Anna Akhmatova

19 " 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. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

20 " 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. "

― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova