ANNA AKHMATOVA

Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.

It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.

All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead.

I should be proud to have my memory graced, but only if the monument be placed... here, where I endured three hundred hours in line before the implacable iron bars.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart I never will deny her, Who suffered death because she chose to turn.

But our land will not be divided by the enemy at his pleasure the Mother-of-God will spread a white shroud over these great sorrows

I am not with those who abandoned their land.

We aged a hundred years, and this happened in a single hour: the short summer had already died, the body of the ploughed plains smoked.

If you were music I would listen to you ceaselessly And my low spirits would brighten up.

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.

Let whoever wants to, relax in the south, And bask in the garden of paradise. Here is the essence of north—and it's autumn I've chosen as this year's friend.

The word landed with a stony thud Onto my still-beating breast. Nevermind, I was prepared, I will manage with the rest. I have a lot of work to do today; I need to slaughter memory, Turn my living soul to stone Then teach myself to live again. . . But how. The hot summer rustles Like a carnival outside my window; I have long had this premonition Of a bright day and a deserted house.

A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. "Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me.

If I can't have love, if I can't find peace, / Give me a bitter glory.

No, not under the vault of another sky, not under the shelter of other wings. I was with my people then, there where my people were doomed to be.

The secret of secrets is inside me again.

I have long had this premonition of a bright day and a deserted house

There is a sacred, secret line in loving which attraction and even passion cannot cross.

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.

I seem to myself, as in a dream, Am accidental guest in this dreadful body.

All that I am hangs by a thread tonight

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.