Analysis of Celebrate

Anna Akhmatova 1889 (Odessa) – 1966 (Moscow)



Celebrate our anniversary – can’t you see
tonight the snowy night of our first winter
comes back again in every road and tree -
that winter night of diamantine splendour.

Steam is pouring out of yellow stables,
the Moika river’s sinking under snow,
the moonlight’s misted as it is in fables,
and where we are heading – I don’t know.

There are icebergs on the Marsovo Pole.
The Lebyazh’ya’s crazed with crystal art.....
Whose soul can compare with my soul,
if joy and fear are in my heart? -

And if your voice, a marvellous bird’s,
quivers at my shoulder, in the night,
and the snow shines with a silver light,
warmed by a sudden ray, by your words?


Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GHHG
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 10100100111 010101110110 11010100101 1101111 1110111010 011010101 011111010 011110111 11101011 0111101 11101111 11011011 0111011 11110001 001110101 110101111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 663
Words 121
Sentences 7
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 125
Words per stanza (avg) 30
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
93

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova was born in 1889 in Odessa on the Black Sea coast. In 1910 she married Nikolai Gumilev, who was also a poet. He was shot as an alleged counter-revolutionary in 1921. Very little of Akhmatova's poetry was published between 1923 and 1941. After Stalin's death her poetry began to be published again. She died in 1966, in a suburb of Moscow. more…

All Anna Akhmatova poems | Anna Akhmatova Books

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