I haven't been here for seven hundred years,
But nothing has changed ...
In the same way the grace of God sill pours
From unassailable heights,

The same choirs of stars and water,
The same black vaults of sky,
And the wind spreads the saeed the same way,
And mother sings the same song.

My Asian house is sound,
And I can be tranquil ...
I will return. And now, fence, bloom!
Now reservoir, fill!

from Seventh Book (1963)

**************************************

SEASIDE SONNET

Here everything will outlive me,
Everything, even the decrepit starling houses,
And this breeze, a vernal breeze,
finishing its flight from across the sea.

And the voice of eternity beckons
With unearthly irresistiblity,
And over the blossoming cherry trees
The crescent moon pours radiance.

And it seems so clear,
Growing white in teh emerald underbrush,
The road to— I won't say where ...

There among the tree trunks it's brighter still,
And everything resembles the allée
Along the pond at Tsarskoe Selo.

(June 1958, Komarovo)

"Seaside Sonnet" from Odd Number (1964)

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966),
Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova
(translated by Judith Hemschemeyer)
Zephyr Press, Brookline, MA, 2000, pp. 169, 189

Biography | Pictorial Bio | Literary Bio | Museum |
Academy of American Poets | Akhmatova Poems | Web Links