By Anna Akhmatova

The Grey-Eyed King

Glory to you, pain forever enduring!

For yesterday died our young grey-eyed king.
 

The autumn-time evening was stuffy and red,

My husband, once back from his work, calmly said:

 

"You know that they carried him back from the hunt,

Beside the old oak-tree his body was found.

 

I pity the queen. Him so young and so ripe.

Her hair turned to silver in one single night".
 

He found his pipe atop of the hearth

And into the night he went right back to work.

 

Young daughter of mine from her bed I would raise,

And into her little grey eyes I would gaze.

 

While beside my window the poplars would sing:

"No more doth he walk on this earth, your young king...

 

To get properly sick...”

To get properly sick,
 In a fiery delirium
And to meet everyone
All over again,
In a sun-glazed and windy garden sea-side,
Just to wander around its alleys,
So wide.
--
Even the dead ones agree to come by,
And the exiles within my own home,
Would you grab his small fingers and bring me the child,
For a while I've been missing him so.

With all of my darlings I'd dine on blue grapes,
And then I would drink wine of ice,
Then I’d watch the grey waterfall streaming away,
Right onto the moist creamy depths.

 

From The Wreath For The Dead

DE PROFUNDIS* I summon my generation
That tasted so little of honey. And now...
Only wind still bellows out in the distance,
Just memory all the dead ones still sings.
And it was never quite finished, our task:
On one hand you could count our hours,
Until the desired partition of waters,
Until the sublime springtime's peak,
Until the desperate flowering
Remained only one single breath...
Two wars, oh my generation,
Shed light on your frightening path.

* De Profundis: (Latin) From the void.

 

I Waited many years for him in Vain...”

I waited many years for him in vain,

But unextinguished light commenced its shine.

Three years were marked this past Palm Saturday.

My voice broke off

And, growing soft – was silence-strewn

For, with a smile, before me stood my groom.

 

While, though the window, with their candles

Did the folk slowly walk.

Oh, evening, so God-praying!

Did slightly crackle the thin ice of April,

And, right above the crowd,

Did the voice of bells like a constellation trill

And the black evening little flames did sway.

 

And white narcissus flowers on the table

And in a flat glass the red wine

As if in dawntime murk I'd find.

My hand, upon which wax did drip,

Would shiver while receiving every kiss.

And all my blood would sing: the blessed -

Oh, my blood, rejoice!

- 1916

 

While Reading Hamlet

1

A dusty bare lot to the right of the graveyard,

Behind it a river runs blue.

You said to me: "Go then, To the monastery

Or else off to marry a fool..."

Princes are only such things

Ever saying,

But I've recalled this single talk

Hundred centuries straight

May it be stream,

Off my shoulders an ermine cloak.

2

And as if in error I did utter:

"You..." Unmasked a smile's shadow

Features which I knew.

From such reservations

Any gaze would glisten...

I love you just like forty

Sweet and tender sisters.

- 1909