Beneath me the peaks of the Caucasus lie,
My gaze from the snow-bordered cliff I am bending;
From her sun-lighted eyry the Eagle ascending
Floats movelessly on in a line with mine eye.
I see the young torrent's first leap towards the ocean,
And the cliff-cradled lawine essay its first motion.
Beneath me the clouds in their silentness go,
The cataract through them in thunder down-dashing,
Far beneath them bare peaks in the sunny ray flashing,
Weak moss and dry shrubs I can mark yet below.
Dark thickets still lower--green meadows are blooming,
Where the throstle is singing, and reindeer are roaming.
Here man, too, has nested his hut, and the flocks
On the long grassy slopes in their quiet are feeding,
And down to the valley the shepherd is speeding,
Where Arágva gleams out from her wood-crested rocks.
And there in his crags the poor robber is hiding,
And Térek in anger is wrestling and chiding.
Like a fierce young Wild Beast, how he bellows and raves,
Like that Beast from his cage when his prey he espieth;
'Gainst the bank, like a Wrestler, he struggleth and plyeth,
And licks at the rock with his ravening waves.
In vain, thou wild River! dumb cliffs are around thee,
And sternly and grimly their bondage hath bound thee.
* * * * *
To those who measure the value of a poem, less by the pretension and
ambitiousness of its form, than by the completeness of its execution and
the skill with which the leading idea is developed, we think that the
graceful little production which we are now about to present to the
reader, will possess very considerable interest. It is, it is true, no
more important a thing than a mere song; but the naturalness and unity
of the fundamental thought, and the happy employment of what is
undoubtedly one of the most effective artifices at the command of the
lyric writer--we mean repetition--render the following lines worthy of
the universal admiration which they have obtained in the original, and
may not be devoid of charm in the translation:--