Yes! I remember well our meeting,
When first thou dawnedst on my sight,
Like some fair phantom past me fleeting,
Some nymph of purity and light.
By weary agonies surrounded,
'Mid toil, 'mid mean and noisy care,
Long in mine ear thy soft voice sounded,
Long dream'd I of thy features fair.
Years flew; Fate's blast blew ever stronger,
Scattering mine early dreams to air,
And thy soft voice I heard no longer--
No longer saw thy features fair.
In exile's silent desolation
Slowly dragg'd on the days for me--
Orphan'd of life, of inspiration,
Of tears, of love, of deity.
I woke--once more my heart was beating--
Once more thou dawnedst on my sight,
Like some fair phantom past me fleeting,
Some nymph of purity and light.
My heart has found its consolation--
All has revived once more for me--
And vanish'd life, and inspiration,
And tears, and love, and deity.
* * * * *
The versification of the following little poem is founded on a system
which Púshkin seems to have looked upon with peculiar favour, as he has
employed the same metrical arrangement in by far the largest proportion
of his poetical works. So gracefully and so easily, indeed, has he
wielded this metre, and with so flexible, so delicate, and so masterly a
hand, that we could not refrain from attempting to imitate it in our
English version; for we considered that it is impossible to say how much
of the peculiar _character_ of a poet's writings depends upon the
colouring, or rather the _touch_--if we may borrow a phrase from the
vocabulary of the critic in painting--of the metre. Undoubtedly a poet
is the best judge not only of the kind, but of the degree of the effect
which he wishes to produce upon his reader; and there may be, between
the thoughts which he desires to embody, and the peculiar harmonies in
which he may determine to clothe those thoughts, analogies and
sympathies too delicate for our grosser ears; or, at least, if not too
subtle and refined for our ears to perceive, yet far too delicate for us
to define, or exactly to appreciate. Moved by this reasoning, we have
always preferred to follow, as nearly as we could, the exact
versification, and even the most minute varieties of tone and metrical
accentuation. Inattention to this point is undoubtedly the
stumbling-block of translators in general; of the dangerous consequences
of such inattention, it is not necessary to give any elaborate proof.
How much, we may ask, does not the poetry of Dante, for instance, lose,
by being despoiled of that great source of its peculiar effect springing
from the employment of the _terza rima_! It is in vain to say, that it
is enormously difficult to produce the _terza rima_ in English. To
translate the "gran padre Alighier" into English _worthily_, the _terza
rima must_ be employed, whatever be the obstacles presented by the
dissimilarities existing between the Italian and English languages.