Analysis of To Anna Akhmatova
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
I think I can call on words
that will last: you are there.
But if I can’t, no matter –
I’ll persist, I won’t care.
I hear the muttering of wet roofs,
pale eclogues from stones and kerb.
From the opening lines, that city,
is alive in each sound, each word.
You can’t leave town though it’s spring,
and your customers won’t wait.
Dawn glows, by lamplight sewing
with unbowed back, eyes wet.
Breathing the calm of far-off Ladoga,
stumbling towards the water.
There’s no relief from such trips.
The shallows smell mustier, darker.
The wind dances, it’s a walnut shell,
a glitter, the warm wind blows
branches and stars, lights, and views,
as the seamstress watches the flow.
Eyesight can be sharp, differently,
form be precise in varying ways,
but a solvent of acid power’s
out there under the white night’s blaze.
That’s how I see your face and look.
Not that pillar of salt, in mind,
in which five years ago you fixed
our fears of looking behind.
From your first verses where grains
of clear speech hardened, to the last,
your eye, the spark that shakes the wire,
makes all things quiver with the past.
Scheme | X A B A X X C X D X D X D B X B X X X X C E X E X F X F X G B G |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111 111111 1111110 101111 110100111 111101 101001110 10101111 1111111 0110011 111110 101111 10011111 10001010 1101111 011110 01101011 0100111 1001101 10101001 1111100 110101001 101011010 11100111 11111101 11101101 01110111 10111001 1111011 11110101 110111010 11110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,101 |
Words | 200 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 32 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 27 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 6 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 139 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"To Anna Akhmatova" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4562/to-anna-akhmatova>.
Discuss this Boris Pasternak poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In