The Muse

STANLEY KUNITZ with MAX HAYWARD

Four Poems by 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."