Poem of the Week: Anna Akhmatova's "Love"

While you read the big biography, you might as well keep a copy of Overlook's Anna Akhmatova's Selected Poems handy. Spring is springing on Spring Streets everywhere, and love is in the air like smog. Cough cough. Enjoy "Love" by this terrific Russian poet!--Jim










LOVE

Now by the heart, furled still
Like a snakelet, its magic brewing,
Now on the white of the sill
Whole days as a dovelet cooing,

Now a glint of the hoarfrost's glaring,
Now an edge to the stock's slow scent,
But surely and secretly bearing
Away from delight and content.

So sweetly it melts its distress
In the violin's suppliant moan,
And it frightens one when one guesses
Its lurk in a smile yet unknown.

[1911]