In Memory of M.B.
Anna Akhmatova 1889 (Odessa) – 1966 (Moscow)
Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.
Alone you let the terrible stranger in,
and stayed with her alone.
Now you're gone, and nobody says a word
about your troubled and exalted life.
Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn
at your dumb funeral feast.
Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I
, I, sick with grief for the buried past,
I, smoldering on a slow fire,
having lost everything and forgotten all,
would be fated to commemorate a man
so full of strength and will and bright inventions,
who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,
hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 06, 2023
- 41 sec read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXXAXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 762 |
Words | 138 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 12 |
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"In Memory of M.B." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/3005/in-memory-of-m.b.>.
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