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Reading Hamlet

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Reading Hamlet (1909) is one of Akhmatova's earliest published poems, written when she was just twenty, weaving Shakespeare's play into a landscape of personal heartbreak. "You said: 'Go, get thee, to a nunnery / Or get a fool to marry you.'"

To the right, wasteland by the cemetery,
Beyond it the river's dull blue.
You said: 'Go, get thee, to a nunnery
Or get a fool to marry you…'

Though that's always how Princes speak,
Still, I've remembered the words.
As an ermine mantle let them stream,
Behind him, through endless years.

Crowd Score: 6.5

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