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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.

Anna Akhmatova

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Anna Akhmatova
Age: 76 †
Born: 1889
Born: June 23
Died: 1966
Died: March 5
Author
Literary Critic
Literary Scholar
Poet
Translator
Writer
Odesa
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko
Anna Achmatova
Anna Ahmatova
Anna Gorenko
Anna Andreevna Gorenko
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova
Praise
Songs
Cold
Land
Enemy
Flattery
Song
Enemies
Left
Leaves
Mercy

More quotes by Anna Akhmatova

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If you were music I would listen to you ceaselessly And my low spirits would brighten up.
Anna Akhmatova
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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.
Anna Akhmatova
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Now no one will listen to songs. The prophesied days have begun. Latest poem of mine, the world has lost its wonder, Don't break my heart, don't ring out.
Anna Akhmatova
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That was when the ones who smiled Were the dead, glad to be at rest.
Anna Akhmatova
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A land not mine, still forever memorable, the waters of its ocean chill and fresh. Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk, and the air drunk, like wine, late sun lays bare the rosy limbs of the pinetrees. Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.
Anna Akhmatova
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Your voice is wild and simple. You are untranslatable Into any one tongue.
Anna Akhmatova
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I go forth to seek To seek and claim the lovely magic garden Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.
Anna Akhmatova
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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.
Anna Akhmatova
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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.
Anna Akhmatova
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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.
Anna Akhmatova
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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.
Anna Akhmatova
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And this tenderness was not like That which a certain poet At the beginning of the century called true And, for some reason, quiet. No, not at all— It rang out, like the first waterfall, It crunched like the crust of bluish ice And it prayed with a swanlike voice, And it broke down right before our eyes.
Anna Akhmatova
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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
Anna Akhmatova
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The celebrations Of secret nonmeetings are empty, Unspoken conversations, Unuttered words. Glances that don't intersect Don't know where to come to rest. And only the tears rejoice Because they can flow and flow. Sweetbrier around Moscow, Alas! Somehow it is here ... And all this they will call Love eternal.
Anna Akhmatova
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There is a sacred, secret line in loving which attraction and even passion cannot cross.
Anna Akhmatova
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Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.
Anna Akhmatova
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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.
Anna Akhmatova
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How the miracle of our meeting Shone there and sang, I didn't want to return From there to anywhere. Happiness instead of duty Was bitter delight to me. Not obliged to speak to anyone, I spoke for a long while. Let passions stifle lovers, Demanding answers, We, my dear, are only souls At the limits of the world.
Anna Akhmatova
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Call me a sinner, Mock me maliciously: I was your insomnia, I was your grief.
Anna Akhmatova
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But Fear and the Muse in turn guard the place Where the banished poet has gone And the night that comes with quickened pace Is ignorant of dawn.
Anna Akhmatova