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Selected Poems Quotes
Selected Poems
by
Anna Akhmatova4,062 ratings, 4.30 average rating, 183 reviews
Selected Poems Quotes
Showing 1-19 of 19
“Wild honey smells of freedom
The dust - of sunlight
The mouth of a young girl, like a violet
But gold - smells of nothing.”
― Selected Poems
The dust - of sunlight
The mouth of a young girl, like a violet
But gold - smells of nothing.”
― Selected Poems
“... he is rewarded with a form of eternal childhood,
with the bounty and vigilance of the stars,
the whole world was his inheritance
and he shared it with everyone.”
― Selected Poems
with the bounty and vigilance of the stars,
the whole world was his inheritance
and he shared it with everyone.”
― Selected Poems
“Seaside gusts of wind,
And a house in which we don't live,
And the shadow of a cherished cedar
In front of a forbidden window...
Perhaps there is someone in this world
To whom I could send all these lines. Well then!
Let the lips smile bitterly
And a tremor touch the heart again.”
― Selected Poems
And a house in which we don't live,
And the shadow of a cherished cedar
In front of a forbidden window...
Perhaps there is someone in this world
To whom I could send all these lines. Well then!
Let the lips smile bitterly
And a tremor touch the heart again.”
― Selected Poems
“It is good here: rustle and snow-crunch...
Ski tracks on the splendid finery
of the snow; a memory
that long ages ago
we passed here together.”
― Selected Poems
Ski tracks on the splendid finery
of the snow; a memory
that long ages ago
we passed here together.”
― Selected Poems
“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.”
― Selected Poems
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.”
― Selected Poems
“He loved three things alone:
White peacocks, evensong,
old maps of America.
He hated children crying,
and raspberry jam with his tea,
and womanish hysteria.
...And then he married me.
1911”
― Selected Poems
White peacocks, evensong,
old maps of America.
He hated children crying,
and raspberry jam with his tea,
and womanish hysteria.
...And then he married me.
1911”
― Selected Poems
“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.”
― Akhmatova: Poems
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.”
― Akhmatova: Poems
“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.”
― Selected Poems
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.”
― Selected Poems
“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”
― Selected Poems
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”
― Selected Poems
“Native Soil
There's
Nobody simpler than us, or with
more pride, or fewer tears.
(1922)
Our hearts don't wear it as an amulet,
it doesn't sob beneath the poet's hand,
nor irritate the wounds we can't forget
in our bitter sleep. It's not the Promised Land.
Our souls don't calculate its worth
as a commodity to be sold and bought;
sick, and poor, and silent on this earth,
often we don't give it a thought.
Yes, for us it's the dirt on our galoshes,
yes, for us it's the grit between our teeth.
Dust, and we grind and crumble and crush it,
the gentle and unimplicated earth.
But we'll lie in it, become its weeds and flowers,
so unembarrassedly we call it - ours.”
― Selected Poems
There's
Nobody simpler than us, or with
more pride, or fewer tears.
(1922)
Our hearts don't wear it as an amulet,
it doesn't sob beneath the poet's hand,
nor irritate the wounds we can't forget
in our bitter sleep. It's not the Promised Land.
Our souls don't calculate its worth
as a commodity to be sold and bought;
sick, and poor, and silent on this earth,
often we don't give it a thought.
Yes, for us it's the dirt on our galoshes,
yes, for us it's the grit between our teeth.
Dust, and we grind and crumble and crush it,
the gentle and unimplicated earth.
But we'll lie in it, become its weeds and flowers,
so unembarrassedly we call it - ours.”
― Selected Poems
“The Last Toast
I drink to our demolished hose,
to all this wickedness,
to you, our loneliness together,
I raise my glass -
And to the dead-cold eyes,
the lie that has betrayed us,
the coarse, brutal world, the fact
that God has not saved us.
1934”
― Selected Poems
I drink to our demolished hose,
to all this wickedness,
to you, our loneliness together,
I raise my glass -
And to the dead-cold eyes,
the lie that has betrayed us,
the coarse, brutal world, the fact
that God has not saved us.
1934”
― Selected Poems
“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”
― Selected Poems
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”
― Selected Poems
“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.”
― Selected Poems
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.”
― Selected Poems
“In Dream
Black and enduring separation
I share equally with you.
Why weep? Gove me your hand,
promise me you will come again.
You and I are like high
mountains and we can't move closer.
Just send me word
at midnight sometime through the stars.
1946”
― Selected Poems
Black and enduring separation
I share equally with you.
Why weep? Gove me your hand,
promise me you will come again.
You and I are like high
mountains and we can't move closer.
Just send me word
at midnight sometime through the stars.
1946”
― Selected Poems
“In those years only the dead smiled, Glad to be at rest: And Leningrad city swayed like A needless appendix to its prisons.”
― Akhmatova: Poems
― Akhmatova: Poems
“There are Four of Us
I have turned aside from everything,
from the whole earthly store.
The spirit and guardian of this place
is an old tree-stump in water.
We are brief guests of the earth, as it were,
and life is a habit we put on.
On paths of air I seem to overhear
two friendly voices, talking in turn.
Did I say two?...There
by the east wall's tangle of raspberry,
is a branch of elder, dark and fresh.
Why! It's a letter from Marina.
November 1962 (in delirium)”
― Selected Poems
I have turned aside from everything,
from the whole earthly store.
The spirit and guardian of this place
is an old tree-stump in water.
We are brief guests of the earth, as it were,
and life is a habit we put on.
On paths of air I seem to overhear
two friendly voices, talking in turn.
Did I say two?...There
by the east wall's tangle of raspberry,
is a branch of elder, dark and fresh.
Why! It's a letter from Marina.
November 1962 (in delirium)”
― Selected Poems
“There are not enough faces. Your own gapes back
at you on someone else, but paler, then the moment
when you see the next one and forget yourself.
It must be dreams that makes us different, must be
private cells inside a common skull.
One has the other's look and has another memory.
Despair stares out from tube-trains at itself
running on the platform for the closing door.
Everyone you meet is telling wordless barefaced truths.
Sometimes the crowd yields one you put a name to,
snapping fiction into fact. Mostly your lover passes in the rain and does not know you when you speak.
- I Remember Me”
― Selected Poems
at you on someone else, but paler, then the moment
when you see the next one and forget yourself.
It must be dreams that makes us different, must be
private cells inside a common skull.
One has the other's look and has another memory.
Despair stares out from tube-trains at itself
running on the platform for the closing door.
Everyone you meet is telling wordless barefaced truths.
Sometimes the crowd yields one you put a name to,
snapping fiction into fact. Mostly your lover passes in the rain and does not know you when you speak.
- I Remember Me”
― Selected Poems
“I drink to the ruined house,
To my wicked life,
To our loneliness together,
And I drink to you, —
To the lying lips that betrayed me,
To the dead coldness of eyes,
To the fact that the world is cruel and harsh,
To the fact that God did not save.
-Akhmatova, Anna”
― Selected Poems
To my wicked life,
To our loneliness together,
And I drink to you, —
To the lying lips that betrayed me,
To the dead coldness of eyes,
To the fact that the world is cruel and harsh,
To the fact that God did not save.
-Akhmatova, Anna”
― Selected Poems
“क्लियोपेट्रा
(मैं हवा और आग - शेक्सपियर)
एंथनी के मृत होंठ पहले से ही खाए और चूमे जा रहे थे
सीजर के पैर घुटने मोड़कर बैठे थे
सेवक गद्दार होते हैं। घने अंधेरे में
हार को देखते हुए, रोम के ईगलपक्खी तालियों से खेल रहे हैं।
अपने आकर्षक रूप में अंतिम व्यक्ति, घर में प्रवेश किया
लंब और शाही। स्टालिन अपनी रानी के सामने:
"आप सड़क पर एक गुलाम-लड़की की तरह चलेंगे, क्योंकि विजेता!"
वह सुनता है और सोता है, एक बतख की तरह, उष्णकटिबंधीय गर्मी!
भोर में, उसके बच्चे एक चेन बांधेंगे। थोड़ा प्यार
वह अभी भी दुनिया में है: वह भी आदमी के साथ मजाक करता है।
फिर इसे छोड़ना दया की तरह जहरीला होगा
श्यामल छाती के हाथों में काली विशालकाय”
― Anna Ajmatova
(मैं हवा और आग - शेक्सपियर)
एंथनी के मृत होंठ पहले से ही खाए और चूमे जा रहे थे
सीजर के पैर घुटने मोड़कर बैठे थे
सेवक गद्दार होते हैं। घने अंधेरे में
हार को देखते हुए, रोम के ईगलपक्खी तालियों से खेल रहे हैं।
अपने आकर्षक रूप में अंतिम व्यक्ति, घर में प्रवेश किया
लंब और शाही। स्टालिन अपनी रानी के सामने:
"आप सड़क पर एक गुलाम-लड़की की तरह चलेंगे, क्योंकि विजेता!"
वह सुनता है और सोता है, एक बतख की तरह, उष्णकटिबंधीय गर्मी!
भोर में, उसके बच्चे एक चेन बांधेंगे। थोड़ा प्यार
वह अभी भी दुनिया में है: वह भी आदमी के साथ मजाक करता है।
फिर इसे छोड़ना दया की तरह जहरीला होगा
श्यामल छाती के हाथों में काली विशालकाय”
― Anna Ajmatova
