Shade
Anna Akhmatova 1889 (Odessa) – 1966 (Moscow)
‘What does a certain woman know of the hour of her death?’ - Mandelstam
Tallest, suavest of us, why Memory,
forcing you to appear from the past, pass
down a train, swaying, to find me
clear profiled through the window-glass?
Angel or bird? How we debated!
The poet thought you like translucent straw.
Through dark lashes, your eyes, Georgian,
looking, with gentleness, on it all.
Shade, forgive. Blue skies, Flaubert,
Insomnia, late-blooming lilac flower,
bring you, and the magnificence of the year,
nineteen-thirteen, to mind, and your
unclouded temperate afternoon, memory
difficult for me now – Oh, shade!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 30 sec read
- 126 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | A BCACXXXXXXXXBX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 609 |
Words | 101 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 14 |
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"Shade" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/3022/shade>.
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