“The word dropped like a stone
on my still living breast.
Confess: I was prepared,
am somehow ready for the test.”

— Anna Akhmatova

As translated by Stanley Kunitz
Then fell the word of stone on
My still existing, still heaving breast.
Never mind, I was not unprepared, and
Shall manage to adjust to it somehow.
Translated by D. M. Thomas
And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.
Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer http://www.favoritepoem.org/poems/akhmatova/ from Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1989)
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), The Sentence

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 8, 2021. History

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Anna Akhmatova 99

Russian modernist poet 1889–1966

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