Anna Akhmatova, Russian Symbolist and Acmeist poet, is introduced through this selection of fifteen of her poems in an English translation:•Song of the Last Meeting•I see the faded flag over the customs house•A Room at Evening•The Prayer•Verses about St Petersburg•When in suicidal depression•How is this century worse than those which went before?•We thought that we were poor•The Memory of the 19th July 1914•May Snow•Comfort•Petrograd 1919•In the Evening•All has been looted, betrayed, sold•July 1914