“the marble eyelids are not wet: / If it could weep, it could arise and go.”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday:

The Muse, Anna Akhmatova, tr. Stanley Burnshaw

When in the night I await her coming,
My life seems stopped. I ask myself: What
Are tributes, freedom, or youth compared
To this treasured friend holding a flute?
Look, she’s coming! She throws off her veil
And watches me, steady and long. I say:
“Was it you who dictated to Dante the pages
Of Hell?” And she answers: “I am the one.”


Akhmatova (1889-1966) was a foundational poet of Russian Modernism, who spent much of her career wrestling with Stalinism. The original as well as a French version can be found here.

---L.

Subject quote from Grief, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.