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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 09, 2023

27 sec read
59

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABXBAXXX AXXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 493
Words 84
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 4

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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