Alexander By Thebes
I think, the king was fierce, though young,
When he proclaimed, 'You’ll level Thebes with ground.'
And the old chief perceived this city proud,
He’d seen in times that are in sagas sung.
Set all to fire! The king listed else
The towers, the gates, the temples – rich and thriving…
But sank in thoughts, and said with lighted face,
'You just provide the Bard Home’s surviving.'
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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The Victory
2
Over a pier, the first beacon inflamed --
The vanguard of other sea-rangers;
The mariner cried and bared his head;
He sailed with death beside and ahead
In seas, packed with furious dangers.
3
By our doors Great Victory stays ...
But how we'll glory her advent?
Let women lift higher the children! They blessed
With life mid a thousand thousands deaths --
Thus will be the dearest answered.
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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I Don't Know If You're Alive Or Dead
I don't know if you're alive or dead.
Can you on earth be sought,
Or only when the sunsets fade
Be mourned serenely 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.
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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Crucifix
Do not cry for me, Mother, seeing me in the grave.
I
This greatest hour was hallowed and thandered
By angel's choirs; fire melted sky.
He asked his Father:"Why am I abandoned...?"
And told his Mother: "Mother, do not cry..."
II
Magdalena struggled, cried and moaned.
Peter sank into the stone trance...
Only there, where Mother stood alone,
None has dared cast a single glance.
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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I Have No Use For Odic Legions
I have no use for odic legions,
Or for the charm of elegiac play
For me, all verse should be off kilter
Not the usual way.
If only you knew what trash gives rise
To verse, without a tinge of shame,
Like bright dandelions by a fence,
Like burdock and like cocklebur.
An angry shout, the bracing smell of tar,
Mysterious mildew on the wall…
And out comes a poem, light-hearted, tender,
To your delight and mine.
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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If the Moon on the skies Does not Roam
If the moon on the skies does not roam,
But cools, like a seal above,
My dead husband enters the home
To read the letters of love.
He remembers the box, made of oak,
With the lock, very secret and odd,
And spreads through a floor the stroke
Of his feet in the iron bond.
He watches the times of the meetings
And the signatures' blurry set.
Hasn't had he sufficiently grievings
And pains in this word until that?
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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This Evening’s Light Is Golden Bright
This evening's light is golden bright,
The April’s coolness is so tender,
Though you are many years too late,
I still do welcome you to enter.
Right next to me why don't you sit
And look with happy eyes around.
This little notebook has in it
The poems written in my childhood.
Forgive me that I've lived and mourned,
And was not grateful for the sun rays…
Forgive me please, forgive me for
I have mistaken you for others…
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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Love
As a snake, coiling up in a knot,
At the very heart she's conjuring.
Or the whole day she's like tiny dove
On the window white tender cooing.
Or she sparkles in hoar-frost bright,
And in dozing - like a gillyflower...
But she surely, secretly guides
You from a pleasure and from a quiet.
She can sweetly and plaintively cry
In a prayer of boring violin,
And is awe now to guess her in smile,
Yet unknown, though such greeting.
poem by Anna Akhmatova (24 November 1911), translated by Lyudmila Purgina
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Under Her Dark Veil
Under her dark veil she wrung her hands.
"Why are you so pale today?"
"Because I made him drink of stinging grief
Until he got drunk on it.
How can I forget? He staggered out,
His mouth twisted in agony.
I ran down not touching the bannister
And caught up with him at the gate.
I cried: 'A joke!
That's all it was. If you leave, I'll die.'
He smiled calmly and grimly
And told me: 'Don't stand here in the wind.' "
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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Memory of Sun
Memory of sun seeps from the heart.
Grass grows yellower.
Faintly if at all the early snowflakes
Hover, hover.
Water becoming ice is slowing in
The narrow channels.
Nothing at all will happen here again,
Will ever happen.
Against the sky the willow spreads a fan
The silk's torn off.
Maybe it's better I did not become
Your wife.
Memory of sun seeps from the heart.
What is it? -- Dark?
Perhaps! Winter will have occupied us
In the night.
poem by Anna Akhmatova
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