Analysis of I Hear the Oriole's Always-Grieving Voice

Anna Akhmatova 1889 (Odessa) – 1966 (Moscow)



I hear the oriole's always-grieving voice,
And the rich summer's welcome loss I hear
In the sickle's serpentine hiss
Cutting the corn's ear tightly pressed to ear.
And the short skirts of the slim reapers
Fly in the wind like holiday pennants,
The clash of joyful cymbals, and creeping
From under dusty lashes, the long glance.

I don't expect love's tender flatteries,
In premonition of some dark event,
But come, come and see this paradise
Where together we were blessed and innocent.


Scheme ABXBAXXX AXXX
Poetic Form
Metre 11011101 0011010111 001101 1001110111 00111011 100111010 0111010010 1101010011 11011101 0001011101 11101110 10101010100
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 493
Words 84
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 194
Words per stanza (avg) 41
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 09, 2023

27 sec read
59

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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