Your voice is wild and simple. You are untranslatable Into any one tongue. Anna Akhmatova More Quotes by Anna Akhmatova More Quotes From Anna Akhmatova There is a sacred, secret line in loving which attraction and even passion cannot cross. Anna Akhmatova passion secret love If I can't have love, if I can't find peace, / Give me a bitter glory. Anna Akhmatova bitter glory giving 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. Anna Akhmatova ocean wine memorable Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter. Anna Akhmatova bitter beautiful hands If you were music I would listen to you ceaselessly And my low spirits would brighten up. Anna Akhmatova ifs spirit lows 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. Anna Akhmatova flames angel beautiful I am not one of those who left the land to the mercy of its enemies. Their flattery leaves me cold, my songs are not for them to praise. Anna Akhmatova land song enemy But here, in the murk of conflagration, where scarcely a friend is left to know we, the survivors, do not flinch from anything, not from a single blow. Surely the reckoning will be made after the passing of this cloud. We are the people without tears, straighter than you ... more proud. Anna Akhmatova blow clouds people The secret of secrets is inside me again. Anna Akhmatova secret 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. Anna Akhmatova soul summer memories It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace. Anna Akhmatova smile death Sunset in the ethereal waves: Anna Akhmatova sunset secret world I myself, from the very beginning, Seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium Or a reflection in someone else's mirror, Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. Already I knew the list of crimes That I was destined to commit. Anna Akhmatova mirrors reflection dream Give me bitter years of sickness, Suffocation, insomnia, fever, Take my child and my lover, And my mysterious gift of song This I pray at your liturgy After so many tormented days, So that the stormcloud over darkened Russia Might become a cloud of glorious rays. Anna Akhmatova insomnia song children I have long had this premonition of a bright day and a deserted house Anna Akhmatova premonition house long No foreign sky protected me, no stranger's wing shielded my face. I stand as witness to the common lot survivor of that time, that place. Anna Akhmatova sky wings time We thought: we're poor, we have nothing, but when we started losing one after the other so each day became remembrance day, we started composing poems about God's great generosity and our former riches. Anna Akhmatova remembrance generosity each-day You thought I was that type: that you could forget me, and that I'd plead and weep and throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare, or that I'd ask the sorcerers for some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift: my precious perfumed handkerchief. Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soul vicarious tears or a single glance. And I swear to you by the garden of the angels, I swear by the miracle-working ikon, and by the fire and smoke of our nights: I will never come back to you. Anna Akhmatova broken-heart angel night Now no one will listen to songs. The prophesied days have begun. Latest poem of mine, the world has lost its wonder, Don't break my heart, don't ring out. Anna Akhmatova heart song world The word dropped like a stone on my still living breast. Confess: I was prepared, am somehow ready for the test. Anna Akhmatova breasts tests stones
