Anna Akhmatova

It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.

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.

Wild honey smells of freedom. The dust of sunlight The mouth of a young girl like a violet But gold smells of nothing.

If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly, and my low spirits would brighten up.

Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.

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.

All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead.

Tomorrow the mirrors will mock me.