Anna Akhmatova

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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 groansI 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

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I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry; poetry and love and again, complete chaos. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry. Sheer enchantment, fear, humiliation. It all comes with love

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Song falls silent, music is dumb,But the air burns with their fragrance,And white winter, on its knees,Observes everything with reverent attention

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Why is it that you still beguile me –As wind, stone, bird – and all the likes? Why is that you smile on me – With sudden summer lightning strikes?

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All my contemporaries—hundred-and-fivers or convicts—will tell you how we livedin barely sentient fear, raisingchildren for the executioner,prison, or the torture chamber