18.7.07

learn to be still...


Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, (1914)

Natan Isaevich Altman


*

– from Anna Akhmatova’s “Now Nobody Will Want to Listen...”
Now nobody will want to listen to songs,
the bitter days foretold come over the hill.
I tell you, song, the world has no more marvels,
do not shatter my heart, learn to be still.

                                                 – 1917

(Trans. Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward)

2 comments:

Kate Evans said...

Gorgeous painting...and lines.

Thanks for the XJ Kennedy & Duchamps, too. I'm very interested in ekphrastic poetry.

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Thanks for the view and read, Kate. Ekphrastic pieces are among my favorites - as reader and as writer.