Anna Akhmatova: Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold

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Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold

Anna Akhmatova, Anna Akhmatova poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry, poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry

by Anna Akhmatova
(1889 - 1966) Timeline

English version by
Stanley Kunitz

Original Language
Russian

Secular or Eclectic

20th Century

Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?

By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.

And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses --
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.

1921

-- from Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, Edited by Jane Hirshfield

Amazon.com

Themes

Heart

Night

Sky

Recommended Books

	The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, Edited by Roberta Reeder / Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer
	Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, Edited by Jane Hirshfield

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Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World