He Did Love

Anna Akhmatova 1889 (Odessa) – 1966 (Moscow)



He did love three things in this world:
Choir chants at vespers, albino peacocks,
And worn, weathered maps of America.
And he did not love children crying,
Or tea served with raspberries,
Or woman's hysteria.
...And I was his wife.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 27, 2023

12 sec read
145

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDECF
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 233
Words 42
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 7

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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