217 Quotes by Anna Akhmatova

I drink to our ruined house, to the dolor of my life, to our loneliness together; and to you I raise my glass, to lying lips that have betrayed us, to dead-cold pitiless eyes, and to the hard realities; that the world is brutal and coarse, that God, in fact, has not saved us.

But I am not allowed to forgetThe taste of the tears of yesterday.

I will lead a man to dear one --I don't want the little joy --And I'll quietly lay to sleepThe glad, tired little boy.In a chilly room once moreI will pray to Mother of God,It is hard to be a hermit,To be happy is also hard.Only fiery sleep will come to me,I'll enter a temple on the hill,Five-domed, white, and stone-hewn,On the paths remembered well.

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. That day in Moscow, it will all come true, when, for the last time, I take my leave, And hasten to the heights that I have longed for, Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

This land, although not my native land,Will be remembered forever.And the sea's lightly iced,Unsalty water.The sand on the bottom is whiter than chalk,The air is heady, like wine,And the rosy body of the pinesIs naked in the sunset hour.And the sunset itself on such waves of etherThat I just can't comprehendWhether it is the end of the day, the end of the world,Or the mystery of mysteries in me again.

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?

And in the depths of music, I didn’t find the answer,And again there was silence, and again the ghost of summer.

Divine angel, who betrothed usSecretly on winter morn,From our sadness-free existenceDoes not take his darkened eyes.For this reason we love sky,And fresh wind, and air so thin,And the dark tree branchesBehind fence of iron.For this reason we love the strict,Many-watered, and dark city,And we love the parting,And brief meetings' hour.

How can you look at Nieva,How can on the bridges you rise?With a reason I'm sad since the timeYou appeared before my eyes.Sharp are black angels' wings,The last judgment is coming soon,And raspberry fires, like roses,In the white snow bloom.