CONTENTSO F P A G E I I.
_____Foreboding.
July 10. 1830.
To Su<shkova>.
Weep! weep, thou tribe of Israel!
Mayst see how Tranquil is my Gaze.
Fragment.
Ballad. From Byron.
The Angel.
Call hope illusion, falsehood truth.
When shall the vulgar tale with Scorn.
Novgorod.
Tomb of a Warrior.
Lines on a painting by Rembrandt.
To ***. Corruption is excused enough!
My Home.
______
SHALL come the year, Rossiia's evil year,
When at the crown of Czars the realm shall sneer;
The peasants shall forget their pious love,
And many in search of death and blood shall rove;
When Artlessness, when maidens' Innocence
Shan't in the toppled Law find their defense;
When from the sordid, lifeless corses Plague
Shall come the sadden'd villages to ague,
To enter any cot and claim what's hers,
When Hunger shall this wretched land traverse;
And fiery glow the river banks shall span:
That day there shall appear a mighty Man,
And thou shalt know him and shalt understand
What for is the steel dagger in his hand:
And woe then unto thee, thy wail, thy cry
Shall seem to him a sorry comedy;
And sombre, terrible shall be thy foe,
So as his overcoat and raised brow.
_____AGAIN, ye proud, have ye rebell'd
The country's freedom to maintain,
And toil'd anew to have ye quell'd
Sons of Autocracy in vain,
Anew of bloody Liberty the banner
Hath come, a sombre sign of Victory;
Once under it to march was Glory's manner:
Suvorov was its mightiest enemy.
_____DID I stand near thee all these days,
I did not hear emotion's flame;
And met I thy delightful gaze
My heart beat calmly all the same.But what of that? first talk of parting
Has made my very essence tremble;
No pangs, I am sure, forebodes it starting;
There is no love I'll not dissemble.Yet would a day! an hour were mine
To while away at this address
With of thine eyes the wondrous shine
To pacify soul's restlessness.
_____
WEEP! WEEP, THOU TRIBE OF ISRAEL!WEEP! weep, thou tribe of Israel!
Thy star is missing from the sky;
Shan't rise it for a second spell
And earth shall all be dreary;There at the very least is one
Who with it every thing has lost;
He seeking for where last it shone
Vales without thoughts and feelings cross'd!..
_____I.
MAYST see how tranquil is my gaze,
Though of my destiny the star,
As the dimm'd thoughts of brighter days,
No more is shining from afar.
The tear that once did o'er and o'er
Burst out to sparkle before thee
Shall come no more, as shan't this hour,
Sent for a laugh by Destiny.II.
Didst slight me with a merry air,
And I would answer by disdain
The emptiness of heart would ne'er
For aught I substitute again.
We must for ever be apart;
By nothing quiet can be got...
Though something whispers in the heart
That love another I can not.III.
With other passions strain'd my soul,
But if those hopes that were the first
Do ne'er fulfil another role,
Then how wilt have them be dispersed?..
How solace to my life wilt give,
When hast already turn'd to dust
My hopes for this realm where I live,
When I may 've in the heavens lost trust?..
_____DID on a maiden's breast he glance,
By accident, through any chance,
Or in a gaze he see a glim,
Unmoved the heart remain'd in him,
So as a falcon, near the shore
Perch'd on a rock at a late hour;
Though gleaming are not far away
(Amidst the barren waters' spray)
The sails of fishermen's poor skiffs,
Are of the sky the gaseous cliffs
Being traced by his assiduous eye.
And thus an idle hour goes by!
He knows: these skiffs, that daily are
By breezes driven from afar,
Not for his sake sail on and on,
They will gleam on, they will be gone!..
_____O BEWARE! on the highway to Burgos beware,
There sitteth a monk robed in black;
In the dark of the night he is muttering a prayer,
A dirge for a time drifted back.
When the Moor was come to our vale we roam,
And the threshold defiled of the church,
Out all monks he threw without further ado;
But would still in the halls one lurch.Or for good or for ill (this I heard not alone,
And not I am the one this to tell),
When the landlord return'd who those places did own,
To depart him would nothing compel.
Although no one can vaunt he hath seen the monk haunt
The castle, to doubt is unmeet,
For that oft I've been told the strange tale of the old,
That am I afraid to repeat.O'er the birth of each son in the silence he wept;
When the line was quite come to its end,
He with hollow steps would as moonshine crept
The stairs ascend and descend.
_____AN angel was flying at night through the sky
To sing a serene melody;
The moon and the stars and the clouds in a throng,
Revering, were listing that song.He'd sing of the blest who know nothing of vice,
Enveloped within Paradise;
The greatness of God would he sing, and his laud
By feigning had never been flawed.A juvenile soul for a world he did bring
Of sorrow and of suffering,
And did his song's sound in the soul he had clasp'd
Remain without words, but yet grasp'd.And long was that soul pining in its new home,
With wondrous desire overcome,
And could not the sounds it had heard at its birth
Forget for the songs sung on earth.
_____
CALL HOPE ILLUSION, FALSEHOOD TRUTH.CALL hope illusion, falsehood truth,
A bloody villain call a dove,
Take not my praises thou as sooth,
But trust, O, trust that thee I love!So love I that thou must believe;
I nought could hide and gaze thee at:
Thee were it sinful to deceive,
Too art thou angel-like for that.
_____
WHEN SHALL THE VULGAR TALE WITH SCORN.WHEN shall the vulgar tale with scorn
Deliver to thine ears my name
And at the hour when I was born
Make shudder half the world with shame,
When shall in search of blood I rove,
'Mongst men but rarely shall appear,
Condemn'd to gladden no one's love,
And likewise no one's malice fear;Then shall of penitence the blade
Thee pierce; and shalt recall to thee
What at our parting have I said.
Alas! that was not reverie!
And if, if when it all is done
Shall have alone my heart been rent,
Then earlier must the Lord have known
That thou wert born for merriment.
_____SONS of the snows, Slavonians' sons,
Why courage have ye ceased to cherish?
Why?.. Perish must your tyrant once,
As every tyrant had to perish!..
Until our days, when Liberty is named,
Will palpitate your heart and seethe your blood!..
There's an impoverish'd city, earlier famed
For all to which your aspirations flood.
_____I.
HE hath been asleep since long ago,
He sleepeth his last sleep,
A hillock o'er him strewn, green sod
Far as the eye can sweep.II.
The silver curls of the old man
Full mingled are with earth;
Above his shoulders once they flew,
At feasts of hearty mirth.III.
White as the foam of waves are they,
That billow by the rocks;
His lips, discoursings' favourites,
Are under Chillness' locks.IV.
And pale have wax'd the deadman's cheeks,
As pale as would the brows
Of all, when saw they in their ranks
The fiercest of their foes.V.
His chest is cover'd with black earth,
But burden'd it is not,
And worms, of movement unafraid,
The forehead crawl to slot.VI.
Was it for this he lived and fought,
That in the evening hour
Would to his solitary mound
The desert eagles lower?VII.
Though doth of him the native bard
The memory still keep,
But song is song; and life is life!
He sleepeth his last sleep.
_____
LINES ON A PAINTING BY REMBRANDT.DARK genius, thou didst understand
That unaccountable sad dream,
The passion it can be when fann'd,
What Byron has made us puzzling deem.
I see a visage half-disclosed
Is figured by a forceful stroke;
'Tis not a nobleman deposed,
Escaping in the sacred cloak?
The guilt of a concealed offense
Perchance his lofty mind must bear;
All 's dark around; with qualm intense
Is fill'd his supercilious glare.
Perchance from nature he was painted,
And not ideal was his face!
Or when with torments wert acquainted
Didst thine own countenance thou trace?
Yet never shall the secret lurk
Within the casual person's sight,
And shall in this distinguish'd work
The soulless find reproaching spite.
_____
TO ***.
CORRUPTION IS EXCUSED ENOUGH!CORRUPTION is excused enough!
Must royal purple shield a villain?
Let fools to deify him puff,
Another lyre for him let trill on;
But thou, O bard, stop thou alone,
A golden crown 'tis not thy crown!Of exile from thy land of birth
Boast as of freedom everywhere;
A lofty mind and soul with mirth
Has Nature given thee one year;
Didst witness ill, and 'fore that ill
Thy head droop'd not, bent not thy will.Sang'st Liberty thou at the time
When ruled the tyrant's persecution,
Afraid 'fore God to do a crime,
And unafraid of execution,
Thou sang'st, and was there in this land
One who thy song did understand.
_____MY home is where the heavenly vault is seen,
Or sound the songs with passion loaded,
All lives in it that holds of life the sheen,
But for a poet 'tis not crowded.Attains its roofing of the night the treasures,
And from a wall to reach a wall
Is a long journey, that the lodger measures
Not with his gaze, but with his soul.A sense of truth is in men's hearts recurrent,
Eternal is its sacred seed:
Borderless space, of ages the wild torrent
It will absorb with lightning speed.And has by the Almighty my fair home
Been built to house it and tower by it,
And long to suffer in there is my doom,
And in there only I'll have quiet.
_____
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