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Iris DeMent

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Iris DeMent

Not With A Lover's Lyre / Anna Akhmatova's Recitation of 'The Muse'

It's not with a lover's lyre, not at all.
That I go around, attracting a crowd.
It's the rattle with which lepers crawl
That in my hands keeps singing aloud.

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Where nothing Is needed, I walk like a child,
My shadow serves as the friend I crave.
The wind breezes out of a grove gone wild,
And my foot is on the edge of the grave.
[1964]

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]