Anna Akhmatova – I rarely think of you now

One of the most beautiful and fascinating poems I’ve read in a while:

Walter Richard Sickert, Minnie Cunningham at the Old Bedford, 1892

I rarely think of you now,

Not captured by your fate,

But our insignificant meeting’s trace

Has not vanished from my soul.

 

I purposely avoid your red house,

That red house on its muddy river,

But I know I bitterly disturb

Your sunlit heart at rest.

Marc Chagall, Rain, 1911

Marc Chagall, The Flying Carriage, 1913

Though you never bent to my lips,

Imploring love,

Never immortalised my longing

In verse of gold –

 

I secretly conjure the future,

When evening shines clear and blue,

And foresee the inevitable meeting,

A second meeting, with you.

John Everett Millais, Caller Herrin’