That dream my thirsty
spirit has conquered. Now
I can honour in you the
divine boy, ten years old!
Let us wait by the river that
rinses the coloured beads of street-lights:
I shall take you as far as the square
that has witnessed adolescent Tsars.
Whistle out your boyish
pain, your heart squeezed in your hand.
My indifferent and crazy creature –
now set free – goodbye!
1916
Where does this tenderness come from?
These are not the – first curls I
have stroked slowly – and lips I
have known are – darker than yours
as stars rise often and go out again
(where does this tenderness come from?)
so many eyes have risen and died out
in front of these eyes of mine,
and yet no such song have
I heard in the darkness of night before,
(where does this tenderness come from?):
here, on the ribs of the singer.
Where does this tenderness come from?
And what shall I do with it, young
sly singer, just passing by?
Your lashes are – longer than anyone’s.
1916
Bent with worry, God
paused, to smile.
And look, there were many
holy angels with bodies of
the radiance he had
given them,
some with enormous wings and
others without any,
which is why I weep
so much
because even more than God
himself I love his fair angels.
1916
Today or tomorrow the snow will melt.
You lie alone beneath an enormous fur.
Shall I pity you? Your lips
have gone dry for ever.
Your drinking is difficult, your step heavy.
Every passer-by hurries away from you.
Was it with fingers like yours that Rogozhin
clutched the kitchen knife?
And the eyes, the eyes in your face!
Two circles of charcoal, year-old circles!
Surely when you were still young your girl
lured you into a joyless house.
Far away – in the night – over asphalt – a cane.
Doors – swing open into – night – under beating wind.
Come in! Appear! Undesired guest! Into
my chamber which is – most bright!
1916
1
There are clouds – about us
and domes – about us:
over the whole of Moscow
so many hands are needed!
I lift you up like a
sapling, my best burden: for
to me you are weightless.
In this city of wonder
this peaceful city
I shall be joyful, even
when I am dead. You
shall reign, or grieve
or perhaps receive my crown:
for you are my first born!
When you fast – in Lent
do not blacken your brows
and honour the churches – these
forty times forty – go
about on foot – stride youthfully
over the whole seven of
these untrammelled hills.
Your turn will come.
You will give Moscow
with tender bitterness
to your daughter also.
As for me – unbroken sleep
and the sound of bells
in the surly dawn of
the Vagankovo cemetery.
2
Strange and beautiful brother – take this
city no hands built – out of my hands!
Church by church – all the forty times forty, and
the small pigeons also that rise over them.
Take the Spassky gate, with its flowers, where
the orthodox remove their caps, and
the chapel of stars, that refuge from evil,
where the floor is – polished by kisses.
Take from me the incomparable circle
of five cathedrals, ancient, holy friend!
I shall lead you as a guest from another
country to the Chapel of the Inadvertent Joy
where pure gold domes will begin to shine
for you, and sleepless bells will start thundering.
There the Mother of God will drop her
cloak upon you from the crimson clouds
and you will rise up filled with wonderful powers.
Then, you will not repent that you have loved me!
5
Over the city that great Peter rejected
rolls out the thunder of the bells.
A thundering surf has overturned upon
this woman you have now rejected.
I offer homage to Peter and you also,
yet above you both the bells remain
and while they thunder from that blueness, the
primacy of Moscow cannot be questioned
for all the forty times forty churches
laugh above the arrogance of Tsars.
7
There are seven hills – like seven bells
seven bells, seven bell-towers. Every
one of the forty times forty churches, and the
seven hills of bells have been numbered.
On a day of bells I was born, it was
the golden day of John the Divine.
The house was gingerbread surrounded by
wattle-fence, and small churches with gold heads.
And I loved it, I loved the first ringing,
the nuns flowing towards Mass, and
the wailing in the stone, the heat of sleeping –
the sense of a soothsayer in the neighbouring house.
Come with me, people of Moscow, all of you,
imbecile, thieving, flagellant mob!
And priest: stop my mouth up firmly
with Moscow – which is a land of bells!
8
Moscow, what a vast
hostelry is your house!
Everyone in Russia is – homeless,
we shall all make our way towards you.
With shameful brands on our backs and
knives – stuck in the tops of our boots,
for you call us in to you
however far away we are,
because for the brand of the criminal
and for every known sickness
we have our healer here,
the Child Panteleimon.
Behind a small door where
people pour in their crowds
lies the Iversky heart –
red-gold and radiant
and a Hallelujah floods
over the burnished fields.
Moscow soil, I bend to
kiss your breast.
1916
2
As I love to
kiss hands, and
to name everything, I
love to open
doors!
Wide – into the night!
Pressing my head
as I listen to some
heavy step grow softer
or the wind shaking
the sleepy and sleepless
woods.
Ah, night
small rivers of water rise
and bend towards – sleep.
(I am nearly sleeping.)
Somewhere in the night a
human being is drowning.
3
In my enormous city it is – night,
as from my sleeping house I go – out,
and people think perhaps I’m a daughter or wife
but in my mind is one thought only: night.
The July wind now sweeps a way for – me.
From somewhere, some window, music though – faint.
The wind can blow until the dawn – today,
in through the fine walls of the breast rib-cage.
Black poplars, windows, filled with – light.
Music from high buildings, in my hand a flower.
Look at my steps – following – nobody.
Look at my shadow, nothing’s here of me.
The lights – are like threads of golden beads
in my mouth is the taste of the night – leaf.
Liberate me from the bonds of – day,
my friends, understand: I’m nothing but your dream.
5
Now as a guest from heaven, I
visit your country:
I have seen the vigil of the forests
and sleep in the fields.
Somewhere in the night horseshoes
have torn up the grass, and
there are cows breathing heavily in
a sleepy cowshed.
Now let me tell you sadly and
with tenderness of the
goose-watchman awake, and
the sleeping geese,
of hands immersed in dog’s wool,
grey hair – a grey dog –
and how towards six
the dawn is beginning.
6
Tonight – I am alone in the night,
a homeless and sleepless nun!
Tonight I hold all the keys to this
the only capital city
and lack of sleep guides me on my path.
You are so lovely, my dusky Kremlin!
Tonight I put my lips to the breast
of the whole round and warring earth.
Now I feel hair – like fur – standing on end:
the stifling wind blows straight into my soul.
Tonight I feel compassion for everyone,
those who are pitied, along with those who are kissed.
7
In the pine-tree, tenderly tenderly,
finely finely: something hissed.
It is a child with black
eyes that I see in my sleep.
From the fair pine-trees hot
resin drips, and in this
splendid night there are
saw-teeth going over my heart.
8
Black as – the centre of an eye, the centre, a blackness
that sucks at light. I love your vigilance
Night, first mother of songs, give me the voice to sing of you
in those fingers lies the bridle of the four winds.
Crying out, offering words of homage to you, I am
only a shell where the ocean is still sounding.
But I have looked too long into human eyes.
Reduce me now to ashes – Night, like a black sun.
9
Who sleeps at night? No one is sleeping.
In the cradle a child is screaming.
An old man sits over his death, and anyone
young enough talks to his love, breathes
into her lips, looks into her eyes.
Once asleep – who knows if we’ll wake again?
We have time, we have time, we have time to sleep!
From house to house the sharp-eyed
watchman goes with his pink lantern
and over the pillow scatters the rattle
of his loud clapper, rumbling.
Don’t sleep! Be firm! Listen, the alternative
is – everlasting sleep. Your – everlasting house!
10
Here’s another window
with more sleepless people!
Perhaps – drinking wine or
perhaps only sitting,
or maybe two lovers are
unable to part hands.
Every house has
a window like this.
A window at night: cries
of meeting or leaving.
Perhaps – there are many lights,
perhaps – only three candles.
But there is no peace in
my mind anywhere, for
in my house also, these
things are beginning:
Pray for the wakeful house,
friend, and the lit window.
1916
1
Muse of lament, you are the most beautiful of
all muses, a crazy emanation of white night:
and you have sent a black snow storm over all Russia.
We are pierced with the arrows of your cries
so that we shy like horses at the muffled
many times uttered pledge – Ah! – Anna
Akhmatova – the name is a vast sigh
and it falls into depths without name
and we wear crowns only through stamping
the same earth as you, with the same sky over us.
Whoever shares the pain of your deathly power will
lie down immortal – upon his death bed.
In my melodious town the domes are burning
and the blind wanderer praises our shining Lord.
I give you my town of many bells,
Akhmatova, and with the gift: my heart.
2
I stand head in my hands thinking how
unimportant are the traps we set for one another.
I hold my head in my hands as I sing
in this late hour, in the late dawn.
Ah how violent is this wave which has
lifted me up on to its crest: I sing
of one that is unique among us
as the moon is alone in the sky,
that has flown into my heart like a raven,
has speared into the clouds
hook-nosed, with deathly anger: even
your favour is dangerous,
for you have spread out your night
over the pure gold of my Kremlin itself
and have tightened my throat with the pleasure
of singing as if with a strap.
Yes, I am happy, the dawn never
burnt with more purity, I am
happy to give everything to you
and to go away like a beggar,
for I was the first to give you –
whose voice deep darkness! has
constricted the movement of my breathing –
the name of the Tsarskoselsky Muse.
3
I am a convict. You won’t fall behind.
You are my guard. Our fate is therefore one.
And in that emptiness that we both share
the same command to ride away is given.
And now my demeanour is calm.
And now my eyes are without guile.
Won’t you set me free, my guard, and
let me walk now, towards that pine-tree?
4
You block out everything, even the sun
at its highest, hold all the stars in your hand!
If only through – some wide open door, I
could blow like the wind to where you are,
and starting to stammer, suddenly blushing,
could lower my eyes before you
and fall quiet, in tears, as
a child sobs to receive forgiveness.
1916
1
Your name is a – bird in my hand
a piece of – ice on the tongue
one single movement of the lips.
Your name is: five signs,
a ball caught in flight, a
silver bell in the mouth
a stone, cast in a quiet pool
makes the splash of your name, and
the sound is in the clatter of
night hooves, loud as a thunderclap
or it speaks straight into my forehead,
shrill as the click of a cocked gun.
Your name – how impossible, it
is a kiss in the eyes on
motionless eyelashes, chill and sweet.
Your name is a kiss of snow
a gulp of icy spring water, blue
as a dove. About your name is: sleep.
1916
2
Tender – spectre
blameless as a knight, who
has called you into
my adolescent life?
In blue dark, grey
and priestly, you
stand here, dressed in snow.
And it’s not the wind
that drives me through the town now.
No, this is the third
night I felt the old enemy.
With light blue eyes his
magic has bound
me, that snowy singer:
swan of snow, under
my feet he spreads his feathers.
Hovering feathers,
slowly they dip in the snow.
Thus upon feathers
I go, towards the door
behind which is: death.
He sings to me
behind the blue windows.
He sings to me
as jewelled bells.
Long is the shout from
his swan’s beak as
he calls.
Dear spectre of
mist I know this is dreaming,
so one favour now, do
for me, amen: of dispersing.
Amen, amen.
1916
3
You are going – west of the sun now.
You will see there – evening light.
You are going – west of the sun and
snow will cover up your tracks.
Past my windows – passionless
you are going in quiet snow.
Saint of God, beautiful, you
are the quiet light of my soul
but I do not long for your spirit.
Your way is indestructible.
And your hand is pale from holy
kisses, no nail of mine.
By your name I shall not call you.
My hands shall not stretch after you
to your holy waxen face I shall
only bow – from afar
standing under the slow falling snow, I shall
fall to my knees – in the snow.
In your holy name I shall only
kiss that evening snow
where, with majestic pace you
go by in tomb-like quiet,
the light of quiet – holy glory
of it: keeper of my soul.
1916
5
At home in Moscow – where the domes are burning,
at home in Moscow – in the sound of bells,
where I live the tombs – in their rows are standing
and in them Tsaritsas – are asleep and Tsars.
And you don’t know how – at dawn the Kremlin is
the easiest place to – breathe in the whole wide earth
and you don’t know when – dawn reaches the Kremlin
I pray to you until – the next day comes
and I go with you – by your river Neva
even while beside – the Moscow river
I am standing here – with my head lowered
and the line of street lights – sticks fast together.
With my insomnia – I love you wholly.
With my insomnia – I listen for you,
just at the hour throughout – the Kremlin, men
who ring the bells – begin to waken.
Still my river – and your river
still my hand – and your hand
will never join, or not until
one dawn catches up another dawning.
1916
8
And the gadflies gather about indifferent cart-horses,
the red calico of Kaluga puffs out in the wind,
it is a time of whistling quails and huge skies,
bells waving over waves of corn, and more
talk about Germans than anyone can bear.
Now yellow, yellow, beyond the blue trees is a
cross, and a sweet fever, a radiance over
everything: your name sounding like angel.
1916
9
A weak shaft of light through the blackness of hell is
your voice under the rumble of exploding shells
in that thunder like a seraph he is announcing
in a toneless voice, from somewhere else, some
ancient misty morning he inhabits, how he
loved us, who are blind and nameless who
share the blue cloak of sinful treachery
and more tenderly than anyone loved the woman who
sank more daringly than any into the night of evil,
and of his love for you, Russia, which he cannot end.
And he draws an absent-minded finger along
his temple all the time he tells us of
the days that wait for us, how God will deceive us.
We shall call for the sun and it will not rise.
He spoke like a solitary prisoner
(or perhaps a child speaking to himself)
so that over the whole square the sacred
heart of Alexander Blok appeared to us.
1920
6
Thinking him human they
decided to kill him, and
now he’s dead. For ever.
– Weep. For the dead angel.
At the day’s setting, he
sang the evening beauty.
Three waxen lights now
shudder superstitiously
and lines of light, hot
strings across the snow come from him.
Three waxen candles.
To the sun. The light-bearer.
O now look how
dark his eyelids are fallen,
O now look how
his wings are broken.
The black reciter reads.
The people idly stamp.
Dead lies the singer, and
celebrates resurrection.
1916
10
Look there he is, weary from foreign parts,
a leader without body-guard
there – he is drinking a mountain stream from his hands
a prince without native land.
He has everything in his holy princedom there
Army, bread and mother.
Lovely is your inheritance.
Govern, friend without friends.
1921
A kiss on the head – wipes away misery.
I kiss your head.
A kiss on the eyes – takes away sleeplessness.
I kiss your eyes.
A kiss on the lips – quenches the deepest thirst.
I kiss your lips.
A kiss on the head – wipes away memory.
I kiss your head.
1917
Little mushroom, white Bolitus,
my own favourite
The field sways, a chant of ‘Rus’
rises over it.
Help me, I’m unsteady on my feet.
This blood-red is making my eyes foggy.
On either side, mouths lie
open and bleeding, and from
each wound rises a cry:
– Mother!
One word is all I hear, as
I stand dazed. From someone
else’s womb into my own:
– Mother!
They all lie in a row,
no line between them,
I recognise that each one was a soldier.
But which is mine? Which one is another’s?
This man was White now he’s become Red.
Blood has reddened him.
This one was Red now he’s become White.
Death has whitened him.
– What are you? White? – Can’t understand!
– Lean on your arm!
Have you been with the Reds?
– Ry -azan.
And so from right and left
Behind ahead
together, White and Red, one cry of
– Mother!
Without choice. Without anger.
One long moan. Stubbornly.
A cry that reaches up to heaven,
– Mother!
1917–21
Yesterday he still looked in my eyes, yet
today his looks are bent aside. Yesterday
he sat here until the birds began, but
today all those larks are ravens.
Stupid creature! And you are wise, you
live while I am stunned.
Now for the lament of women in all times:
– My love, what was it I did to you?
And tears are water, blood is water,
a woman always washes in blood and tears.
Love is a step-mother, and no mother:
then expect no justice or mercy from her.
Ships carry away the ones we love.
Along the white road they are taken away.
And one cry stretches across the earth:
– My love, what was it I did to you?
Yesterday he lay at my feet. He even
compared me to the Chinese empire! Then
suddenly he let his hands fall open, and
my life fell out like a rusty kopeck.
A child-murderer, before some court
I stand loathsome and timid I am.
And yet even in Hell I shall demand:
– My love, what was it I did to you?
I ask this chair, I ask the bed: Why?
Why do I suffer and live in penury?
His kisses stopped. He wanted to break you.
To kiss another girl is their reply.
He taught me to live in fire, he threw me there,
and then abandoned me on steppes of ice.
My love, I know what you have done to me.
– My love, what was it I did to you?
I know everything, don’t argue with me!
I can see now, I’m a lover no longer.
And now I know wherever love holds power
Death approaches soon like a gardener.
It is almost like shaking a tree, in time
some ripe apple comes falling down. So
for everything, for everything forgive me,
– my love whatever it was I did to you.
1920
High above cross and trumpet
baptised in smoke and fire
my clumsy-footed angel –
Hello there, Vladimir!
Carter and horse at once
justice and whim together.
He used to spit on his palms –
Hold on, carthorse of glory!
Singer of gutter miracles,
grubby, arrogant friend –
Hullo there, you who prefer
topaz to diamond!
Now yawn, play your trump card
my thunderbolt of cobbles,
and rake this horse’s shaft
once more with your angel wing.
1921
No Muse – I had no Muse
to sing by my shabby cradle,
no Muse to warm my hands
or cool my feverish eyelids.
No Muse – combed the hair from my face,
No Muse – led me into the fields.
There was no Muse. No braids,
no beads, no fables – only
tufts of brown hair cut
short over male eyebrows:
a figure in full armour.
A sultan.
He did not lean over my lips.
He did not bless me at bedtime,
still less, grieve with me over
a broken doll. Instead,
he set all my birds free.
On a red horse, he rode off
with pitiless spurs over
navy blue mountains
into a thundering blizzard.
*
Firemen! – A scream
wide as the blaze – Firemen!
Is that our house burning? –
No, a soul is on fire!
Loudly, the tongue of alarm bells
swings backward and forward –
a soul makes a huge fire –
Firemen! My soul is burning
in a dance of fierce beauty,
red torches woven together.
Applause – screams – whistles.
A roar as sparks scatter.
I am lost in a dream
and can’t wake up. I’m only
wearing a nightdress –
ankle length – and a necklace.
Listen to the flames howl,
and the sound of glass shattering.
Our eyes are glowing orbs.
We are burning burning burning.
Firemen! Who cries arson?
Who wants the fire to go out?
I long for these supporting
girders to collapse.
But what is being destroyed here?
Not columns, but desperate hands,
small hands held up to the sky –
I recognise my doll.
Who races in at a gallop?
Who jumps off a red horse?
With a haughty glance at me,
he enters the red house.
Another cry. Louder still.
A cry, and a thunderous blow
He holds up the doll like a shell
And rises like fire itself.
Like the Tsar, among surging flames
he declares with a frown: I saved her
for you. Now smash her…
Let your love go.
And has the world collapsed?
What approaches through the blizzard?
Two arms – stretched after the horse –
The girl – without – her doll.
*
An evil moon through the window:
I am dreaming again.
My lover and I stand close
in a deep embrace. Below us,
the noisy flow of a river.
The foam reaches up to our feet.
Speechless in our embrace
we observe the splashing foam.
I – am all his harems.
He – all my knightly heroes.
We stand, closely holding each other.
Side by side, hand in hand,
The foam reaches our feet.
Then I suddenly ask him to swear
that if I should drop a flower
or a scarf, from the bridge,
he would dive into the river…
To my horror, he does so at once.
I am left on the bridge, shaking,
My blood moans as I see
in terror – dumbly – watching:
my whole life drowning with him.
Now who with the sweep of a cloak
has thrown me up in the air?
Who is it – splashed with red –
throws me into a fire?
With a splash, and triumphant cry
in a smooth jump out of the water
he rises like the river itself
with a body in his arms
like a Tsar in the midst of the surges
he rises to say with a frown
I saved him for you. Now kill him!
Let your love go!
And now what moves in the blizzard?
Two arms – stretching – after
the man on a red horse.
The girl – without – her lover.
*
Now through the window crack
I dream another dream.
Darkness over a track,
and I am with my son.
The blood congeals in my veins.
Let some guide lead us on!
Be brave, my child, the spirit
of the mountain is single.
Only eagles, and Dawn here
– while there are two of us.
A whirlwind! Gods would turn back.
Eagles would be afraid. But
my firstborn inches higher.
We shall reach the heights together.
That’s why I had a son, in pain,
in the dust of the earth, so that
from under an eagle’s wing
this should be mine – God’s thunder.
Black height. Barren slope.
Handholds for small hands.
Is that Zeus above us in his cot
holding an eagle?
Laughter – a violent splash.
Some creature with wings and claws.
Who is pursuing me – with lightning
and eagle thunder?
A hoarse roar splits wide open
The stony breast of the mountain.
Lifting my child like his own,
look, the Rider is rising
like the Tsar among surging clouds
he stands, with a frown on his face.
I saved him for you – now kill him!
Let your love go!
What suddenly cracked? Was it
a dry tree? No. Two arms
stretch toward the horse.
A girl – has lost – motherhood.
*
An evil dawn through the window crack
I dream my third dream.
February. Crooked roads.
The snowstorm in the fields
sweeps across wide tracks –
a whole tribe of winds.
I’m hopping over a slope
and then – up a steep mountain.
I’m following red, a red horse.
We are taking the same track.
For a moment – he’s there,
within hand’s reach and taunting:
Touch me. My hands find
nothing… Ahead, only horse and snow.
Winds, pile drifts on doorways!
cover the steep cliffs over
so that at last the red horse
has to stop dead in his tracks.
*
And now it’s not the blizzard
but a broom sweeps me away,
not the stroke of a sultan
but an old hag with grey
dishevelled hair and her nose
deep in the steam of a cauldron.
She has a rag in her hand,
and a covered decanter
with a glass, which at first
she sets aside – then sips
– What does it mean, my dream?
– Your Angel doesn’t love you!
A crack of thunder, that –
A crowbar on the skull.
My heads sinks into the pillow
I repeat He doesn’t love me.
Doesn’t love me? No need for braids, then.
Doesn’t love me? Or a necklace.
Doesn’t love me? I’ll mount a horse,
and ride off into battle.
*
Soldiers, who are we fighting?
A cold flame enters my chest
like a steel lance, a light beam
pierces under my breast.
And he whispers I wanted this.
It is for this I chose you,
you are my passion, my sister,
mine till the end of time
my bride of ice – in armour –
Mine. Will you stay with me
and belong to no one else?
With a hand on my wound, I agree.
So – not the Muse, not the Muse.
Not the ties of kinship which perish
not the fetters men call friendship
and not by a woman’s hand.
What tightens on me is a fierce
knot. This union frightens.
I am in a ditch, in darkness
even as dawn lightens.
Who attached these heavy wings
on my shoulders? I am
a witness of living storm –
someone who sees shadows,
until I am carried high
into the blue above us
at last – on a red horse –
by my own Genius!
13–17 January 1921
And so, making clear in advance
I know there are miles between us;
and I reckon myself with the tramps, which
is a place of honour in this world:
under the wheels of luxury, at
table with cripples and hunchbacks…
From the top of the bell-tower roof,
I proclaim it: I love the rich.
For their rotten, unsteady root
for the damage done in their cradle
for the absent-minded way their hands
go in and out of their pockets;
for the way their softest word is
obeyed like a shouted order; because
they will not be let into heaven; and
because they don’t look in your eyes;
and because they send secrets by courier!
and their passions by errand boy.
In the nights that are thrust upon them they
kiss and drink under compulsion,
and because in all their accountings
in boredom, in gilding, in wadding,
they can’t buy me I’m too brazen:
I confirm it, I love the rich!
and in spite of their shaven fatness,
their fine drink (wink, and spend):
some sudden defeatedness
and a look that is like a dog’s
doubting…
the core of their balance
nought, but are the weights true?
I say that among all outcasts
there are no such orphans on earth.
There is also a nasty fable
about camels getting through needles
for that look, surprised to death
apologizing for sickness, as
if they were suddenly bankrupt: ‘I would have been
glad to lend, but’ and their silence.
I counted in carats once and then I was one of them.
For all these things, I swear it: I love the rich.
1922
God help us Smoke!
– Forget that. Look at the damp.
These are the ordinary fears
of anyone moving house
approaching a poor lamp
for students in miserable outskirts.
– Isn’t there even a tree
for the children? What sort of landlord
will we have? Too strict?
in a necklace of coins, a porter
impervious as fate
to the shudder in our pockets.
What kind of neighbour?
Unmarried? Perhaps not noisy?
The old place was no pleasure
but still the air there breathed
our atmosphere, was soaked
in our own odours.
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