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Muse

by

Muse (1924) captures the poet's encounter with her creative inspiration in eight unforgettable lines — the Muse arrives as a commanding presence who once dictated the Inferno to Dante, and now comes for Akhmatova. "'So it was you who sang of Hell / to Dante?' 'Yes,' she says, 'it was.'" 
I feel my life hang by a hair
as I wait at night for the Muse;
youth, freedom, fame melt into air
as my guest appears with her flute.

She enters, tosses back her shawl;
her half-closed eyes let nothing pass.
'So it was you who sang of Hell
to Dante?' 'Yes,' she says, 'it was.'
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