Anna Akhmatova The muse
All that I am hangs by a thread tonight as I wait for her whom no one can command. Whatever I cherish most — youth, freedom, glory — fades before her who bears the flute in her hand.
And look! she comes ... she tosses back her veil, staring me down, serene and pitiless. «Are you the one», I ask, «whom Dante heard dictate the lines of his Inferno?» She answers: «Yes».
1924












