Anna Akhmatova Poems

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1.
Everything

Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?
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2.
Requiem

Not under foreign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
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3.
I Taught Myself To Live Simply

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
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4.
Celebrate

Celebrate our anniversary - can't you see
tonight the snowy night of our first winter
comes back again in every road and tree -
that winter night of diamantine splendour.
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5.
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.
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6.
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?
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7.
Crucifix

Do not cry for me, Mother, seeing me in the grave.

I
This greatest hour was hallowed and thandered
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8.
Voronezh

For Osip Mandelstam

And the town is frozen solid in a vice,
Trees, walls, snow, beneath a glass.
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9.
I Wrung My Hands

I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . .
"Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?"
-- Because I have made my loved one drunk
with an astringent sadness.
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10.
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,
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