At the gates of Eden a tender Angel
With drooping head was shining;
A demon gloomy and rebellious
Over the abyss of hell was flying.
The spirit of Denial, the spirit of Doubt,
The spirit of purity espied;
And unwittingly the warmth of tenderness
He for the first time learned to know.
Adieu, he spake. Thee I saw;
Not in vain hast thou shone before me.
Not all in the world have I hated,
Not all in the world have I scorned.
20. Hitherto we have followed Pushkin only through his unconscious song;
only through that song of which his soul was so full as to find an
outlet, as it were, without any deliberate effort on his part. But not
even unto the bard is it given to remain in this childlike health. For
Nature ever works in circles. Starting from health, the soul indeed in
the end arrives at health, but only through the road of disease. And a
good portion of the conscious period in the life of the soul is taken up
by doubt, by despair, by disease. Hence when the singer begins to
reflect, to philosophize, his song is no longer that of health. This is
the reason why Byron and Shelley have borne so little fruit. Their wail
is the cry not of a mood, but of their whole being; it is not the cry of
health temporarily deranged, but the cry of disease. With the healthy
Burns, on the other hand, his poem, "Man was made to Mourn," reflects
only a stage which all growing souls must pass. So Pushkin, too, in his
growth, at last arrives at a period when he writes the following lines,
not the less beautiful for being the offspring of disease, as all
lamentation must needs be:--
"Whether I roam along the noisy streets,
Whether I enter the peopled temple,
Or whether I sit by thoughtless youth,
My thoughts haunt me everywhere.
"I say, swiftly go the years by:
However great our number now,
Must all descend the eternal vaults,--
Already struck has some one's hour.
"And if I gaze upon the lonely oak,
I think: The patriarch of the woods
Will survive my passing age
As he survived my father's age.
"And if a tender babe I fondle,
Already I mutter, Fare thee well!
I yield my place to thee;
For me 'tis time to decay, to bloom for thee.
"Thus every day, every year,
With death I join my thought
Of coming death the day,
Seeking among them to divine
"Where will Fortune send me death,--
In battle, in my wanderings, or on the waves?
Or shall the neighboring valley
Receive my chilled dust?
"But though the unfeeling body
Can equally moulder everywhere,
I, still, my birthland nigh,
Would have my body lie.
"Let near the entrance to my grave
Cheerful youth be engaged in play,
And let indifferent creation
Shine there with beauty eternally."
21. Once passed through its mumps and measles, the soul of the poet now
becomes conscious of its heavenly gift, and begins to have a conscious
purpose. The poet becomes moralized, and the song becomes ethical. This
is the beginning of the final stage, which the soul, if its growth
continue healthy, must reach; and Pushkin, when singing, does retain his
health. Accordingly in his address to the Steed, the purpose is already
clearly visible.