“At dawn they came and took you away.
You were my dead: I walked behind.
In the dark room children cried,
the holy candle gasped for air.”

—  Anna Akhmatova

They led you away...
They took you away at daybreak. Half wak-
ing, as though at a wake, I followed.
In the dark chamber children were crying,
In the image-case, candlelight guttered.
At your lips, the chill of icon,
A deathly sweat at your brow.
I shall go creep to our walling wall,
Crawl to the Kremlin towers.
Translated by D. M. Thomas
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Prologue

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Anna Akhmatova photo
Anna Akhmatova 99
Russian modernist poet 1889–1966

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