Now no-one will be listening to songs

Now no-one will be listening to songs.
The days long prophesied have come to pass.
The world has no more miracles. Don't break
My heart, song, but be still: you are the last.

Not long ago you took your morning flight
With all a swallow's free accomplishment.
Now that you are a hungry beggar-woman,
Don't go knocking at the stranger's gate.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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You Will Hear Thunder

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.

That day in Moscow, it will all come true,
when, for the last time, I take my leave,
And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,
Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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Why Is This Age Worse...?

Why is this age worse than earlier ages?
In a stupor of grief and dread
have we not fingered the foulest wounds
and left them unhealed by our hands?

In the west the falling light still glows,
and the clustered housetops glitter in the sun,
but here Death is already chalking the doors with crosses,
and calling the ravens, and the ravens are flying in.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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Muse

When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient,
Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread.
What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation,
When compared with the gentle piper's tread?

And she came in, threw out the mantle's edges,
Declined to me with a sincere heed.
I say to her, 'Did you dictate the Pages
Of Hell to Dante?' She answers, 'Yes, I did.'

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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To Boris Pasternak

It ceased – the voice, inimitable here,
The peer of groves left forever us,
He changed himself into eternal ear...
Into the rain, of that sang more than once.

And all the flowers, that grow under heavens,
Began to flourish – to meet the going death…
But suddenly it got the silent one and saddened –
The planet, bearing the humble name, the Earth.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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And as it's Going

And as it's going often at love's breaking,
The ghost of first days came again to us,
The silver willow through window then stretched in,
The silver beauty of her gentle branches.
The bird began to sing the song of light and pleasure
To us, who fears to lift looks from the earth,
Who are so lofty, bitter and intense,
About days when we were saved together.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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Sunbeam

I pray to the sunbeam from the window -
It is pale, thin, straight.
Since morning I have been silent,
And my heart - is split.
The copper on my washstand
Has turned green,
But the sunbeam plays on it
So charmingly.
How innocent it is, and simple,
In the evening calm,
But to me in this deserted temple
It's like a golden celebration,
And a consolation.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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The Sentence

And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.

Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again—

Unless . . . Summer's ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I've foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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Thoughts Of The Sunlight

Thoughts of the sunlight fainter and dimmer,
And parched the grass.
Breezes, freh breezes at dawn's early shimmer,
Flit by repass.

Look at the willows against a clear heaven,
Cloudless and wide.
Better, Far better not to be given
Thee for thy bride!

Thoughts of the daylight dimmer and fainter.
Oh, darkness! Gloom!
Once again . . . Morning,
Tell me if winter is come.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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And you, my friends who have been called away

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.

poem by Anna Akhmatova
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