declare Shelley's "Cloud" to be one of the masterpieces of the English
language. _De gustibus non disputandum_. The Chinese have a liking, it
is said, for black teeth, and a bulb of a nose is considered a great
beauty in some parts of Africa, and a human leg is considered a great
delicacy by some Islanders; but....
30. And the second characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race, which,
however valuable it may prove in practical life, is reflected
disastrously in its poetry, is its incapacity to appreciate true
sentiment. An Anglo-Saxon knows sentimentality when he sees it, he
knows morbidness when he sees it; but the healthy sentiment of which
these are but the diseases he is incapable of appreciating to a depth
where it would become part of his life. Hence, though a Malthus might
have written his Essay on Population anywhere, since it is a truly
cosmopolitan book, a Malthusian doctrine with all that it means and
stands for could have grown up only on British soil; and though the
warning voice against the dangers of sentimental charity (_if_ there
really be such a thing, and _if_ such a thing, supposing it to exist,
be really dangerous!) might be lifted in any land, the hard, frigid,
almost brutal doctrine of scientific charity could strike root only
in London, and blossom out in full array only in a city like Boston.
The reader will please observe that I do not here undertake to judge.
Malthusian doctrine, scientific charity, brutality of any kind may be
necessary, for aught I know. A great many well-meaning and kind-hearted
people have in sober thought decided that it often is necessary. I
am only stating what seems to me to be a fact. To me this is a most
melancholy fact; to others it may be a joyful fact. But whether joyful
or melancholy, this fact explains why so little sentiment is found
among the Anglo-Saxon poets even when they _feel_ their passions, and
do not, as is usually the case with them, reason about them, or what is
worse, compose far-fetched similes about them. Glimpses of sentiment
are of course found now and then, but only now and then. It is not
often that Wordsworth sings in such pure strains as that of the lines,--
"My heart leaps up when I behold
A Rainbow in the sky."
It is not often that Byron strikes a chord as deep as that of the lines
"In an Album:"--
"As o'er the cold, sepulchral stone,
Some name arrests the passer-by."
It is here, however, that Pushkin is unsurpassed. One must go to Heine,
one must go to Uhland, to Goethe, to find the like of him. And what
makes him master here is the fact that his sentiment comes out pure,
that it comes forth fused. And it comes thus because it comes from
the depths; and as such it must find response even in an Anglo-Saxon
heart, provided it has not yet been eaten into by Malthusian law and
scientific charity. Pushkin's sentiment extorts respect even where it
finds no longer any response; and as the sight of nobility stirs a
healthy soul to noble deeds, as the sight of beauty refines the eye,
so the presence of true sentiment can only awaken whatever sentiment
already sleeps within us. It is for supplying this glaring defect in
the English poets that a reading of Pushkin becomes invaluable. I
almost fear to quote or compare. Sentiment cannot be argued about;
like all else of the highest, deepest, like God, like love, it must be
_felt_. Where it is understood, nothing need be said; where it is not
understood, nothing can be said....
31. And yet a single example I venture to give. Pushkin's "Inspiring
Love" and Wordsworth's "Phantom of Delight" treat of the same theme.
Pushkin sees his beloved again, and after years--
"Enraptured beats again my heart,
And risen are for it again
Both reverence and Inspiration
And life, and tears, and love."
Wordsworth also gets now a nearer view of his "Phantom of Delight;" and
the sight rouses him to this pitch of enthusiastic sentiment:
"And now I see with eye serene,
The very pulse of the _machine_."
In the presence of such bungling, I am almost ashamed to call
attention, not to the machine that has a pulse, but to that noble woman
who, purified, clarified in the imagination by the heat of a melted
heart, can only become to the poet, a--machine. And this is the poet
(whose very essence should be sensitiveness, delicacy, _sentiment_) who
is ranked by Matthew Arnold as the greatest poet since Shakespeare....
32. I have given only one example, though there is hardly a volume of
English poetry, with the possible exception of those of Burns, which
does not furnish dozens of examples. If I give only one, it is because
I have in mind Æsop's lioness, who gave such smart reply when chided
for giving birth to only one young....
33. There is, indeed, one poet in the English language whose pages
throb with sentiment, and who is moreover singularly free from that
literary vice which I have called insincerity of imagination; in purity
of pictures, in simplicity of sentiment, Goldsmith is unsurpassed in
any tongue, but Goldsmith was not an Anglo-Saxon. And even Macaulay's
great praise of "The Traveller" has not been sufficient to give it
a place of _authority_ among readers. The persons that read "The
Traveller" once a year, as such a possession for all times should be
read by rational readers, are very few.
34. From what I have designated as the first characteristic of the
Anglo-Saxon race--its rhetorical quality--springs the second, which
I have designated as the superficiality of sentiment; since the
rhetorician needs no depth, and when he does need it, he needs it only
for the moment. And from this same rhetorical quality springs the
third characteristic of English writers which appears in literature
as a vice. I mean their comparative lack of the sense of form, of
measuredness, literary temperance,--the want, in short, of the
_artistic_ sense. For architectural proportion, with beginning, middle,
and end in proper relation, English poets have but little respect, and
it is here that Pushkin is again master. It is the essence of poetry,
that which makes it _not-prose_, that it is intense; but intensity to
produce its effect must be short-lived. Prolonged, like a stimulant,
it ceases to act. Hence, one of the first laws of poetry is that the
presentation of its scenes, emotions, episodes, be brief. Against this
law the sins in English literature among its masters are innumerable.
Take, for instance, the manner in which Pushkin, on the one hand, and
English poets, on the other, treat an object which has ever affected
men with poetic emotion.
35. Many are the English poets who have tried their voices in singing
of birds; Wordsworth's lines to the Skylark, the Green Linnet, the
Cuckoo, Shelley's piece "To a Skylark," Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale,"
Bryant's "Lines to a Waterfowl," attest sufficiently the inspiration
which tender birdie hath for the soul of man. Now read these in the
light of Pushkin's twenty lines called "The Birdlet." Bryant alone, it
seems to me, holds his own by the side of Pushkin. Shelley and Keats
are lengthy to weariness; and Wordsworth is almost painfully tame. What
thoughtlet or emotionlet these are stirred with at the sight of birdie
is like a babe in the swaddling-clothes of fond, but inexperienced
parents, suffocated in its wrappage.
36. This measuredness Pushkin displays best in his narrative poems.
His story _moves._ His "Delibash" is the finest example of rapidity of
execution combined with fidelity of skill. And the vividness of his
stories in "The Drowned," "The Roussalka," and "The Cossak," is due not
so much to the dramatic talent Pushkin doubtless possessed as to the
sense of proportion which saved him from loading his narrative with
needless detail. Gray's "Elegy," for instance, matchless in its beauty,
is marred by the needless appendage of the youth himself. This part of
the poem seems _patched on_ Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray" seems to justify
Goldsmith's bold metaphor,--for it does drag a lengthening chain at
each remove. Longfellow's "Prelude" has like "Sartor Resartus" a most
unwieldy apparatus for getting ready. The poet there is ever ready to
say something, but hardly says it even at the end. And even Tennyson,
who at one time did know what it was to keep fine poise in such
matters, is frequently guilty of this merely getting ready to say his
say.
37. These, then, are the three great virtues of Pushkin's poems: They
have sincere imagination, which means pure taste; they have true
sentiment, which means pure depth; they have true measure, which means
pure art. Pushkin has many more virtues which are common to all great
poets; but of these three I thought necessary to speak in detail.
Poems: Autobiographical.
MON PORTRAIT.
X. 35.[1]
Vous me demandez mon portrait,
Mais peint d'après nature:
Mon cher, il sera bientôt fait,
Quoique en miniature.
Je sais un jeune polisson
Encore dans les classes:
Point sot, je le dis sans façon
Et sans fades grimaces.
One, il ne fut de babillard,
Ni docteur de Sorbonne
Plus ennuyeux et plus braillard
Que moi-même en personne.
Ma taille à celle des plus longs
Elle n'est point égalée;
J'ai le teint frais, les cheveux blonds,
Et la tête bouclée.
J'aime et le monde, et son fracas,
Je hais la solitude;
J'abhorre et noises et débats,
Et tant soit peu l'étude.
Spectacles, bals me plaisent fort,
Et d'après ma pensée
Je dirais ce que j'aime encore,
Si je n'étais au lycée.
Après cela, mon cher ami,
L'on peut me reconnaître:
Oui! tel que le bon Dieu me fit,
Je veux toujours paraître.
Vrai demon pour l'espièglerie,
Vrai singe par sa mine,
Beaucoup et trop d'étourderie,--
Ma foi--voilà Poushkine.
$/
[Footnote 1: See Preface, § 1.]
MY PEDIGREE.
IV. 66.
With scorning laughter at a fellow writer,
In a chorus the Russian scribes
With name of aristocrat me chide:
Just look, if please you ... nonsense what!
Court Coachman not I, nor assessor,
Nor am I nobleman by cross;
No academician, nor professor,
I'm simply of Russia a citizen.
Well I know the times' corruption,
And, surely, not gainsay it shall I:
Our nobility but recent is:
The more recent it, the more noble 't is.
But of humbled races a chip,
And, God be thanked, not alone
Of ancient Lords am scion I;
Citizen I am, a citizen!
Not in cakes my grandsire traded,
Not a prince was newly-baked he;
Nor at church sang he in choir,
Nor polished he the boots of Tsar;
Was not escaped a soldier he
From the German powdered ranks;
How then aristocrat am I to be?
God be thanked, I am but a citizen.
My grandsire Radsha in warlike service
To Alexander Nefsky was attached.
The Crowned Wrathful, Fourth Ivan,
His descendants in his ire had spared.
About the Tsars the Pushkins moved;
And more than one acquired renown,
When against the Poles battling was
Of Nizhny Novgorod the citizen plain.
When treason conquered was and falsehood,
And the rage of storm of war,
When the Romanoffs upon the throne
The nation called by its Chart--
We upon it laid our hands;
The martyr's son then favored us;
Time was, our race was prized,
But I ... am but a citizen obscure.
Our stubborn spirit us tricks has played;
Most irrepressible of his race,
With Peter my sire could not get on;
And for this was hung by him.
Let his example a lesson be:
Not contradiction loves a ruler,
Not all can be Prince Dolgorukys,
Happy only is the simple citizen.
My grandfather, when the rebels rose
In the palace of Peterhof,
Like Munich, faithful he remained
To the fallen Peter Third;
To honor came then the Orloffs,
But my sire into fortress, prison--
Quiet now was our stern race,
And I was born merely--citizen.
Beneath my crested seal
The roll of family charts I've kept;
Not running after magnates new,
My pride of blood I have subdued;
I'm but an unknown singer
Simply Pushkin, not Moussin,
My strength is mine, not from court:
I am a writer, a citizen.
MY MONUMENT.
IV. 23.
A monument not hand-made I have for me erected;
The path to it well-trodden will not overgrow;
Risen higher has it with unbending head
Than the monument of Alexander.
No! not all of me shall die! my soul in hallowed lyre
Shall my dust survive, and escape destruction--
And famous be I shall, as long as on earth sublunar
One bard at least living shall remain.
My name will travel over the whole of Russia great,
And there pronounce my name shall every living tongue:
The Slav's proud scion, and the Finn, and the savage yet
Tungus, and the Calmuck, lover of the steppe.
And long to the nation I shall be dear:
For rousing with my lyre its noble feelings.
For extolling freedom in a cruel age,
For calling mercy upon the fallen.
The bidding of God, O Muse, obey.
Fear not insult, ask not crown:
Praise and blame take with indifference
And dispute not with the fool!
_August_, 1836.
MY MUSE.
IV. 1.
In the days of my youth she was fond of me,
And the seven-stemmed flute she handed me.
To me with smile she listened; and already gently
Along the openings echoing of the woods
Was playing I with fingers tender:
Both hymns solemn, god-inspired
And peaceful song of Phrygian shepherd.
From morn till night in oak's dumb shadow
To the strange maid's teaching intent I listened;
And with sparing reward me gladdening
Tossing back her curls from her forehead dear,
From my hands the flute herself she took.
Now filled the wood was with breath divine
And the heart with holy enchantment filled.
1823.
MY DEMON.
IV. 107.
In those days when new to me were
Of existence all impressions:--
The maiden's glances, the forests' whisper,
The song of nightingale at night;
When the sentiments elevated
Of Freedom, glory and of love,
And of art the inspiration
Stirred deeply so my blood:--
My hopeful hours and joyful
With melancholy sudden dark'ning
A certain evil spirit then
Began in secret me to visit.
Grievous were our meetings,
His smile, and his wonderful glance,
His speeches, these so stinging
Cold poison poured into my soul.
Providence with slander
Inexhaustible he tempted;
Of Beauty as a dream he spake
And inspiration he despised;
Nor love, nor freedom trusted he,
On life with scorn he looked--
And nought in all nature
To bless he ever wished.
1823.
REGRET.
IV. 76.
Not ye regret I, of spring my years,
In dreams gone by of hopeless love;
Not ye regret I, O mysteries of nights.
By songstress passionate celebrated;
Not ye, regret I, O my faithless friends
Nor crowns of feasts, nor cups of circle,
Nor ye regret I, O traitresses young--
To pleasures melancholy stranger am I.
But where are ye, O moments tender
Of young my hopes, of heartfelt peace?
The former heat and grace of inspiration?
Come again, O ye, of spring my years!
REMINISCENCE.
IV. 96.
When noisy day to mortals quiet grows,
And upon the city's silent walls
Night's shadow half-transparent lies,
And Sleep, of daily toils reward,--
Then for me are dragging in the silence
Of wearying wakefulness the hours.
In the sloth of night more scorching burn
My heart's serpents' gnawing fangs;
Boil my thoughts; my soul with grief oppressed
Full of reveries sad is thronged.
Before me memory in silence
Its lengthy roll unfolds.
And with disgust my life I reading
Tremble I and curse it.
Bitterly I moan, and bitterly my tears I shed,
But wash away the lines of grief I cannot.
In laziness, in senseless feasts
In the craziness of ruinous license,
In thraldom, poverty, and homeless deserts
My wasted years there I behold.
Of friends again I hear the treacherous greeting
Games amid of love and wine.
To the heart again insults brings
Irrepressible the cold world.
No joy for me,--and calmly before me
Of visions young two now rise:
Two tender shades, two angels me
Given by fate in the days of yore.
But both have wings and flaming swords,
And they watch--... and both are vengeant,
And both to me speak with death tongue
Of Eternity's mysteries, and of the grave.
1828.
ELEGY.
IV. 85.
My wishes I have survived,
My ambition I have outgrown!
Left only is my smart,
The fruit of emptiness of heart.
Under the storm of cruel Fate
Faded has my blooming crown!
Sad I live and lonely,
And wait: Is nigh my end?
Thus touched by the belated frost,
When storm's wintry whistle is heard,
On the branch bare and lone
Trembles the belated leaf.
1821.
RESURRECTION.
IV. 116.
With sleepy brush the barbarian artist
The master's painting blackens;
And thoughtlessly his wicked drawing
Over it he is daubing.
But in years the foreign colors
Peal off, an aged layer:
The work of genius is 'gain before us,
With former beauty out it comes.
Thus my failings vanish too
From my wearied soul,
And again within it visions rise,
Of my early purer days.
1819
THE PROPHET.
IV. 19.
Tormented by the thirst for the spirit
I was dragging myself in a sombre desert,
And a six-winged seraph appeared
Unto me on the parting of the roads.
With fingers as light as a dream
Mine eyes he touched:
And mine eyes opened wise
Like the eyes of a frightened eagle;
He touched mine ears,
And they filled with din and ringing.
And I heard the trembling of the heavens
And the flight of the angel's wings,
And the creeping of the polyps in the sea,
And the growth of the vine in the valley.
And he took hold of my lips,
And out he tore my sinful tongue
With its empty and false speech.
And the fang of the wise serpent
Between my terrified lips he placed
With bloody hand.
And ope he cut with sword my breast,
And out he took my trembling heart,
And a coal with flaming blaze
Into the opened breast he shoved.
Like a corpse I lay in the desert.
And the voice of God unto me called:
Arise, O prophet, and listen, and guide.
Be thou filled with my will,
And going over land and sea
Fire with the word the hearts of men!
1826.
Poems: Narrative.
THE OUTCAST.
III. 5.
On a rainy autumn evening
Into desert places went a maid;
And the secret fruit of unhappy love
In her trembling hands she held.
All was still: the hills and the woods
Asleep in the darkness of the night.
And her searching glances
In terror about she cast.
And on this babe, the innocent,
Her glance she paused with a sigh:
Asleep thou art, my child, my grief.
Thou knowest not my sadness.
Thine eyes will ope, and tho' with longing,
To my breast shalt no more cling.
No kiss for thee to-morrow
From thine unhappy mother.
Beckon in vain for her thou wilt,
My everlasting shame, my guilt!
Me forget thou shalt for aye,
But thee forget shall not I.
Shelter thou shalt receive from strangers,
Who 'll say: Thou art none of ours!
Thou wilt ask, Where are my parents?
But for thee no kin is found!
Hapless one! With heart filled with sorrow,
Lonely amid thy mates,
Thy spirit sullen to the end,
Thou shalt behold fondling mothers.
A lonely wanderer everywhere
Cursing thy fate at all times,
Thou the bitter reproach shalt hear....
Forgive me, oh, forgive me then!
Asleep! let me then, O hapless one
To my bosom press thee once for all.
A law unjust and terrible
Thee and me to sorrow dooms.
While the years have not yet chased
The guiltless joy of thy days,
Sleep, my darling, let no griefs bitter
Mar thy childhood's quiet life!
But lo! behind the woods, near by
The moon brings a hut to light.
Forlorn, pale, and trembling
To the doors nigh she came.
She stooped and gently laid she down
The babe on the threshold strange.
In terror away her eyes she turned
And in the dark night disappeared.
1814.
THE BLACK SHAWL.
III. 83.
I gaze demented on the black shawl
And my cold soul is torn by grief.
When young I was and full of trust
I passionately loved a young Greek girl.
The charming maid, she fondled me,
But soon I lived the black day to see.
Once as were gathered my jolly guests
A detested Jew knocked at my door.
Thou art feasting (he whispered) with friends
But betrayed thou art by thy Greek maid.
Moneys I gave him and curses,
And called my servant the faithful.
We went: I flew on the wings of my steed;
And tender mercy was silent in me.
Her threshold no sooner I espied
Dark grew my eyes, and my strength departed.
The distant chamber I enter alone,
An Armenian embraces my faithless maid.
Darkness around me; flashed the dagger;
To interrupt his kiss the wretch had no time.
And long I trampled the headless corpse,--
And silent and pale at the maid I stared.
I remember her prayers, her flowing blood,
But perished the girl, and with her my love.
The shawl I took from the head now dead
And wiped in silence the bleeding steel.
When came the darkness of eve, my serf
Threw their bodies into the Danube's billows--
Since then I kiss no charming eyes,
Since then I know no cheerful days.
I gaze demented on the black shawl,
And my cold soul is torn by grief.
1820.
THE ROUSSALKA.
III. 71.
By a lake once in forest darkness
A monk his soul was saving,
Ever in stern occupation
Of prayer, fast, and labor.
Already with slackened shovel
The aged man his grave was digging,
And only for death in peace and quiet
To his saintly patrons prayed he.
Once in summer at the threshold
Of his drooping little hut
To God was praying the hermit.
Darker grew the forest.
Over the lake was rising fog.
And in the clouds the reddish moon
Was gently rolling along the sky.
Upon the waters the hermit gazed.
He looks, and fears, and knows not why,
Himself he cannot understand....
Now he sees: the waves are seething
And suddenly again are quiet....
Suddenly ... as light as shade of night,
As white as early snow of hills,
Out cometh a woman naked
And on the shore herself she seats.
Upon the aged monk she gazes
And she combs her moistened tresses--
The holy monk with terror trembles,
Upon her charms still he gazes;
With her hand to him she beckons
And her head she's quickly nodding....
And suddenly like a falling star
The dreamy wave she vanished under.
The sober monk, all night he slept not,
And all day he prayed not
The shadow unwittingly before him
Of the wondrous maid he ever sees.
Again the forest is clad in darkness,
Along the clouds the moon is sailing.
Again the maid above the water,
Pale and splendent there she sits.
Gaze her eyes, nods her head,
Throws kisses, and she's sporting,
The wave she sprinkles, and she frolics;
Child-like weeping now and laughing;
Sobbing tender--the monk she calls:
Monk, O monk, to me, to me!
Into the waves transparent she dashes;
And again is all in silence deep.
But on the third day the roused hermit
The enchanted shores nigh sitting was,
And the beautiful maid he awaited.
Upon the trees were falling shades....
Night at last by dawn was chased--
And nowhere monk could be found,
His beard alone, the gray one
In the water the boys could see.
1819.
THE COSSAK.
III. 14.
Once at midnight hour,
Darkness thro' and fog,
Quiet by the river
Rode a Cossak brave.
Black his cap upon his ear,
Dust-covered is his coat,
By his knee the pistols hang
And nigh the ground his sword.
The faithful steed, rein not feeling
Is walking slowly on,
(Long its mane is, and is waving)
Ever further it keeps on.
Now before him two--three huts:
Broken is the fence;
To the village here the road,
To the forest there.
"Not in forest maid is found,"
Dennis thinks, the brave.
"To their chambers went the maids;
Are gone for the night."
The son of Don he pulls the rein
And the spur he strikes:
Like an arrow rushed the steed--
To the huts he turned.
In the clouds the distant sky
Was silvering the moon;
A Beauty-Maid in melancholy
By the window sits.
Espies the brave the Beauty-Maid,
Beats his heart within:
Gently steed to left, to left--
Under the window now is he.
"Darker growing is the night
And hidden is the moon;
Quick, my darling, do come out,
Water give my steed."
"No, not unto a man so young;
Right fearful't is to go;
Fearful't is my house to leave,
And water give thy steed."
"Have no fear, O Beauty-Maid,
And friendship close with me"--
"Brings danger night to Beauty-Maids,"
"Fear me not, O joy of mine!
"Trust me, dear, thy fear is vain,
Away with terror groundless!
Time thou losest precious,
Fear not, O my darling!
Mount my steed; with thee I will
To distant regions gallop;
Blest with me be thou shalt,
Heaven with mate is everywhere."
And the maid? Over she bends,
Her fear is overcome,
Bashfully to ride consents,
And the Cossak happy is.
Off they dart, away they fly;
Are loving one another.
Faithful he for two brief weeks,
Forsook her on the third.
1815.
THE DROWNED.
IV. 185.