Poetry

I've always been interested in Russian poetry, especially that of Anna Akhmatova. On the website RussiaToday you can get samples from all types of Russian literature from various authors. This is one of my favorites (and depressing!) by Akhmatova =)

The Last Toast

I raise my glass
To ravaged home,
My bitter life,
And lonely days with you.
I drink to you,
To lying lips' betrayal,
To deathly frigid eyes;
To that the world is cruel and crude,
To that we weren't saved by God.

Another of my favorites is My Way, which she wrote in 1940:

One goes in straightforward ways,
One in a circle roams:
Waits for a girl of his gone days,
Or for returning home.

But I do go —and woe is there—
By a way nor straight, nor broad,
But into never and nowhere,
Like trains —off the railroad.