Why dost thou neigh, O spirited steed;
Why thy neck so low,
Why thy mane unshaken,
Why thy bit not gnawed?
Do I then not fondle thee;
Thy grain to eat art thou not free;
Is not thy harness ornamented,
Is not thy rein of silk,
Is not thy shoe of silver,
Thy stirrup not of gold?
The steed, in sorrow, answer gives:
Hence am I still,
Because the distant tramp I hear,
The trumpet's blow, and the arrow's whiz;
And hence I neigh, since in the field
No longer shall I feed,
Nor in beauty live, and fondling,
Nor shine with the harness bright.
For soon the stern enemy
My harness whole shall take,
And the shoes of silver
From my light feet shall tear.
Hence it is that grieves my spirit;
That in place of my chaprak
With thy skin shall cover he
My perspiring sides.
22. It is thus that the singer lifts up his voice against the terrors of
war. It is thus that he protests against the struggle between brother
and brother; and the effect of the protest is all the more potent that
it is put into the mouth, not as Nekrassof puts it, of the singer, but
into that of a dumb, unreasoning beast.
23. We have now reached the last stage of the development of Pushkin's
singing soul. For once conscious of a moral purpose, he cannot remain
long on the plane of mere protest; this is mere negation. What is to him
the truth must likewise be sung, and he utters the note of affirmation;
this in his greatest poem,--