Anna Akhmatova - The Muze (1924)

the great Russian Poet...reading

The Muze
When at night I await her coming,
It seems that life hangs by a strand.
What are honours, what is youth, what is freedom,
Compared to that dear guest with rustic pipe in hand.

And she entered. Drawing aside her shawl
She gazed attentively at me.
I said to her: "Was it you who dictated to Dante
The pages of The Inferno?" She replied: "It was I"