66
" I don't know if you're alive or dead.
Can you on earth be sought,
or only when the sunsets fade
be mourned secretly in my thought?
All is for you: the daily prayer,
the sleepless heat at night,
and of my verses, the white
flock, and of my eyes, the blue fire.
No-one was more cherished, no-one tortured
me more, not
even the one who betrayed me to torture,
not even the one who caressed me and forgot. "
― Anna Akhmatova , Selected Poems
69
" And you, my friends who have been called away,
I have been spared to mourn for you and weep,
not as a frozen willow over your memory,
but to cry to the world the names of those who sleep.
What names are those!
I slam shut the calendar,
down on your knees, all!
Blood of my heart,
the people of Leningrad march out in even rows,
the living, the dead: fame can't tell them apart. "
― Anna Akhmatova , Selected Poems
70
" 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. "
― Anna Akhmatova , Selected Poems
71
" Lot's Wife
And the just man trailed God's messenger,
his huge, light shape devoured the black hill.
But uneasiness shadowed is wife and spoke to her:
'It's not too late, you can look back still
At the red towers of Sodom, the place that bore you,
the square in which you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows of that upper storey
where children blessed your happy marriage-bed.'
Her eyes that were still turning when a bolt
of pain shot through them, were instantly blind;
her body turned into transparent salt,
and her swift legs were rooted to the ground.
Who mourns one woman in a holocaust?
Surely her death has no significance?
Yet in my heart she never will be lost,
she who gave up her life to steal one glance.
1922-24 "
― Anna Akhmatova , Selected Poems
72
" So many requests, always, from a lover!
None when they fall out of love.
I'm glad the water does not move
under the colourless ice of the river.
And I'll stand - God help me! - on this ice,
however light and brittle it is,
and you...take care of our letters,
that our descendants not misjudge us,
That they may read and understand
more clearly what you are, wise, brave.
In your glorious biography
No row of dots should stand.
Earth's drink is much too sweet,
love's nets too close together.
May my name be in the textbooks
of children playing in the street.
When they've read my grievous story,
may they smile behind their desklids...
If I can't have love, if I can't find peace,
give me a bitter glory.
1913 "
― Anna Akhmatova , Selected Poems
74
" Поздний ответ
М. И. Цветаевой
Белорученька моя, чернокнижница...
Невидимка, двойник, пересмешник,
Что ты прячешься в черных кустах,
То забьешься в дырявый скворечник,
То мелькнешь на погибших крестах,
То кричишь из Маринкиной башни:
"Я сегодня вернулась домой.
Полюбуйтесь, родимые пашни,
Что за это случилось со мной.
Поглотила любимых пучина,
И разрушен родительский дом".
Мы с тобою сегодня, Марина,
По столице полночной идем,
А за нами таких миллионы,
И безмолвнее шествия нет,
А вокруг погребальные звоны
Да московские дикие стоны
Вьюги, наш заметающей след. "
― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
