Requiem Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Anna Akhmatova

Requiem Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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shared all this with my own people	A
There where misfortune had abandoned us	B
	C
	-
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE	B
	-
During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror I	D
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in	E
Leningrad One day somehow someone 'picked me out'	F
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me	G
her lips blue with cold who of course had never in	E
her life heard my name Jolted out of the torpor	H
characteristic of all of us she said into my ear	I
everyone whispered there 'Could one ever describe	J
this ' And I answered 'I can ' It was then that	F
something like a smile slid across what had previously	G
been just a face	K
The st of April in the year Leningrad	F
	-
DEDICATION	L
	-
Mountains fall before this grief	M
A mighty river stops its flow	N
But prison doors stay firmly bolted	F
Shutting off the convict burrows	O
And an anguish close to death	P
Fresh winds softly blow for someone	L
Gentle sunsets warm them through we don't know this	Q
We are everywhere the same listening	R
To the scrape and turn of hateful keys	S
And the heavy tread of marching soldiers	T
Waking early as if for early mass	U
Walking through the capital run wild gone to seed	F
We'd meet the dead lifeless the sun	L
Lower every day the Neva mistier	I
But hope still sings forever in the distance	V
The verdict Immediately a flood of tears	W
Followed by a total isolation	L
As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out or	I
Thumped she lies there brutally laid out	F
But she still manages to walk hesitantly alone	X
Where are you my unwilling friends	Y
Captives of my two satanic years	Z
What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard	F
What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon	A2
I send each one of you my salutation and farewell	B2
March	C2
	-
INTRODUCTION	L
PRELUDE	F
	-
It happened like this when only the dead	F
Were smiling glad of their release	D2
That Leningrad hung around its prisons	E2
Like a worthless emblem flapping its piece	D2
Shrill and sharp the steam whistles sang	F2
Short songs of farewell	B2
To the ranks of convicted demented by suffering	R
As they in regiments walked along	G2
Stars of death stood over us	B
As innocent Russia squirmed	F
Under the blood spattered boots and tyres	B
Of the black marias	B
	-
I	D
	-
You were taken away at dawn I followed you	H2
As one does when a corpse is being removed	F
Children were crying in the darkened house	B
A candle flared illuminating the Mother of God	F
The cold of an icon was on your lips a death cold	F
sweat	F
On your brow I will never forget this I will gather	I
	-
To wail with the wives of the murdered streltsy	B
Inconsolably beneath the Kremlin towers	B
Autumn Moscow	N
	-
II	D
	-
Silent flows the river Don	I2
A yellow moon looks quietly on	I2
Swanking about with cap askew	H2
It sees through the window a shadow of you	H2
Gravely ill all alone	X
The moon sees a woman lying at home	J2
Her son is in jail her husband is dead	F
Say a prayer for her instead	F
	-
III	D
	-
It isn't me someone else is suffering I couldn't	F
Not like this Everything that has happened	F
Cover it with a black cloth	K2
Then let the torches be removed	F
Night	F
	-
IV	M
	-
Giggling poking fun everyone's darling	R
The carefree sinner of Tsarskoye Selo	B2
If only you could have foreseen	L2
What life would do with you	H2
That you would stand parcel in hand	F
Beneath the Crosses three hundredth in	E
line	M2
Burning the new year's ice	B
With your hot tears	B
Back and forth the prison poplar sways	B
With not a sound how many innocent	F
Blameless lives are being taken away	N2
	-
	-
V	M
	-
For seventeen months I have been screaming	R
Calling you home	J2
I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers	B
For you my son and my horror	I
Everything has become muddled forever	I
I can no longer distinguish	O2
Who is an animal who a person and how long	G2
The wait can be for an execution	L
There are now only dusty flowers	B
The chinking of the thurible	B2
Tracks from somewhere into nowhere	I
And staring me in the face	B
And threatening me with swift annihilation	L
An enormous star	I
	-
	-
VI	M
	-
Weeks fly lightly by Even so	N
I cannot understand what has arisen	L
How my son into your prison	L
White nights stare so brilliantly	B2
Now once more they burn	P2
Eyes that focus like a hawk	Q2
And upon your cross the talk	Q2
Is again of death	P
Spring	R
	-
VII	M
THE VERDICT	F
	-
The word landed with a stony thud	F
Onto my still beating breast	F
Nevermind I was prepared	F
I will manage with the rest	F
	-
I have a lot of work to do today	N2
I need to slaughter memory	B2
Turn my living soul to stone	X
Then teach myself to live again	R2
	-
But how The hot summer rustles	N
Like a carnival outside my window	N
I have long had this premonition	L
Of a bright day and a deserted house	N
June Summer Fontannyi Dom	S2
	-
VIII	M
TO DEATH	P
	-
You will come anyway so why not now	T2
I wait for you things have become too hard	F
I have turned out the lights and opened the door	I
For you so simple and so wonderful	B2
Assume whatever shape you wish Burst in	E
Like a shell of noxious gas Creep up on me	B2
Like a practised bandit with a heavy weapon	L
Poison me if you want with a typhoid exhalation	L
Or with a simple tale prepared by you	H2
And known by all to the point of nausea take me	B2
Before the commander of the blue caps and let me	B2
glimpse	N
The house administrator's terrified white face	N
I don't care anymore The river Yenisey	N
Swirls on The Pole star blazes	N
The blue sparks of those much loved eyes	N
Close over and cover the final horror	I
August Fontannyi Dom	S2
	-
IX	N
	-
Madness with its wings	N
Has covered half my soul	B2
It feeds me fiery wine	M2
And lures me into the abyss	N
	-
That's when I understood	F
While listening to my alien delirium	U2
That I must hand the victory	B2
To it	F
	-
However much I nag	V2
However much I beg	W2
It will not let me take	X2
One single thing away	N2
	-
Not my son's frightening eyes	N
A suffering set in stone	X
Or prison visiting hours	N
Or days that end in storms	N
	-
Nor the sweet coolness of a hand	F
The anxious shade of lime trees	N
Nor the light distant sound	F
Of final comforting words	N
May Fontannyi Dom	S2
	-
X	N
CRUCIFIXION	L
	-
Weep not for me mother	I
I am alive in my grave	M
	-
	-
A choir of angels glorified the greatest hour	I
The heavens melted into flames	N
To his father he said 'Why hast thou forsaken me '	-
But to his mother 'Weep not for me '	-
Fontannyi Dom	S2
	-
	-
Magdalena smote herself and wept	F
The favourite disciple turned to stone	X
But there where the mother stood silent	F
Not one person dared to look	Y2
Tashkent	F
	-
EPILOGUE	Z2
	-
	-
I have learned how faces fall	B2
How terror can escape from lowered eyes	N
How suffering can etch cruel pages	N
Of cuneiform like marks upon the cheeks	N
I know how dark or ash blond strands of hair	I
Can suddenly turn white I've learned to recognise	N
The fading smiles upon submissive lips	N
The trembling fear inside a hollow laugh	M
That's why I pray not for myself	M
But all of you who stood there with me	B2
Through fiercest cold and scorching July heat	F
Under a towering completely blind red wall	B2
	-
	-
The hour has come to remember the dead	F
I see you I hear you I feel you	H2
The one who resisted the long drag to the open window	N
The one who could no longer feel the kick of familiar	I
soil beneath her feet	F
The one who with a sudden flick of her head replied	F
	-
'I arrive here as if I've come home '	-
I'd like to name you all by name but the list	F
Has been removed and there is nowhere else to look	Y2
So	N
I have woven you this wide shroud out of the humble	B2
words	N
I overheard you use Everywhere forever and always	N
I will never forget one single thing Even in new	H2
grief	M
Even if they clamp shut my tormented mouth	A3
Through which one hundred million people scream	B3
That's how I wish them to remember me when I am dead	F
On the eve of my remembrance day	N2
If someone someday in this country	B2
Decides to raise a memorial to me	B2
I give my consent to this festivity	B2
But only on this condition do not build it	F
By the sea where I was born	C3
I have severed my last ties with the sea	B2
Nor in the Tsar's Park by the hallowed stump	D3
Where an inconsolable shadow looks for me	B2
Build it he	B2