See, on yon rock, a maiden's form,
Far o'er the wave a white robe flashing,
Around, before the blackening storm,
On the loud beach the billows dashing;
Along the waves, now red, now pale,
The lightning-glare incessant gleameth;
Whirling and fluttering in the gale,
The snowy robe incessant streameth;
Fair is that sea in blackening storm,
And fair that sky with lightnings riven,
But fairer far that maiden form,
Than wave, or flash, or stormy heaven!
* * * * *
We now come to one of the most remarkable lyric productions of our
Poet's genius, the "General;" and in order that our readers may be
enabled to understand and appreciate this exquisite little poem, we
shall preface it with a few remarks of an explanatory character; as the
_details_, at least, of the events upon which it is founded may not be
so generally known in England as they are in Russia. Our English
readers, however, are doubtless sufficiently familiar with the history
of the great campaign of the year 1812, which led to the burning of
Moscow, and to the consequent annihilation of the mighty army which
Napoleon led to perish in the snows of Russia, to remember one
remarkable episode connected with that most important campaign. They
remember that one of the Russian armies was placed under the command of
Field-marshal Barclay de Tolly, a general descended from an ancient
Scottish family which had been settled for some generations in Russia,
but who was in every respect to be considered as a native Russian, being
born a subject of the Tsar, and having, during a long life of service in
the Russian army, gradually reached the highest military rank, and
acquired a well-earned and universal reputation as an able strategist
and a brave man. The mode of operations determined on at the beginning
of this most momentous struggle, and persevered in throughout by the
Russians, with a patience and steadiness no less admirable than the
wisdom of the combinations on which they were founded, was a purely
defensive system of tactics. The event amply demonstrated the soundness
of the principles upon which those operations were based; for while
Napoleon was gradually attracted into the interior of the country by
armies which perpetually retired before him without giving him the
opportunity of coming to a general action, the autumn was gradually
passing away, and the flames of Moscow only served to light up, for the
French army, the beginning of their hopeless retreat through a country
now totally laid waste, and covered with the snows of a Russian winter.
This mode of operations, however, was by no means likely to please the
population of Russia, infuriated by the long unaccustomed presence of a
hostile army within their sacred frontier, and worked up by all the
circumstances of the invasion to the highest pitch of patriotic
enthusiasm. Unable to appreciate the value of what must have appeared to
them a timid and pusillanimous policy, they overwhelmed Barclay de Tolly
with violent accusations of cowardice, and even of treachery; rendered
the more plausible to the mind of the ignorant, by the circumstance of
their object being a foreigner--or at least of foreign blood. So violent
ultimately became these accusations, that although the Field-marshal
continued to enjoy the highest confidence and esteem of his sovereign,
it was found expedient to allow him to resign the chief command, in
which he was succeeded by Kutúzoff. Barclay de Tolly, during the greater
part of the campaign, fought as a simple general of division, in which
character (as Púshkin describes) he took part in the great battle of
Borodíno.
Barclay must still be considered as one of those distinguished persons
to whose memory justice has never been entirely done; and to do this
justice was Púshkin's generous task in the noble lines which follow
these remarks. No traveller has ever visited the winter palace of St
Petersburg without having been struck with the celebrated "Hall of
Marshals," which forms one of its most imposing features. In this
magnificent room are placed the portraits (chiefly painted by Dawe, an
English artist, who passed the greater part of his life in Russia) of
the Russian generals who figured in that great campaign; and among them
is to be found, of course, the "counterfeit presentment" of Barclay de
Tolly, painted, as the field-marshals are in every case in this gallery
of portraits, at full length. With respect to the versification of this
and several other poems which we have selected, the English reader will
not perhaps at first remark that it is nothing more than the measure
used by old Drayton in the _Polyolbion_, and one in which a great deal
of the earlier English poetry is written. It is very favourite measure
of our Russian poet, who has, however, increased, in some degree, its
difficulty for an English versifier, by introducing a great number of
double terminations. It will be found, indeed, that these double rhymes
are as numerous as the single or monosyllabic ones.