Why then sadness strange me troubles secretly?
My task done, like needless hireling am I to stand,
My wage in hand, to other task a stranger?
Or my task regret I, of night companion silent mine,
Gold Aurora's friend, the friend of my sacred household gods?
1830.
SLEEPLESSNESS.
IV. 101.
I cannot sleep, I have no light;
Darkness 'bout me, and sleep is slow;
The beat monotonous alone
Near me of the clock is heard.
Of the Fates the womanish babble,
Of sleeping night the trembling,
Of life the mice-like running-about,--
Why disturbing me art thou?
What art thou, O tedious whisper?
The reproaches, or the murmur
Of the day by me misspent?
What from me wilt thou have?
Art thou calling or prophesying?
Thee I wish to understand,
Thy tongue obscure I study now.
1830.
[QUESTIONINGS.]
IV. 98.
Useless gift, accidental gift,
Life, why given art thou me?
Or, why by fate mysterious
To torture art thou doomed?
Who with hostile power me
Out has called from the nought?
Who my soul with passion thrilled,
Who my spirit with doubt has filled?...
Goal before me there is none,
My heart is hollow, vain my mind
And with sadness wearies me
Noisy life's monotony.
1828.
[CONSOLATION.]
IV. 142.
Life,--does it disappoint thee?
Grieve not, nor be angry thou!
In days of sorrow gentle be:
Come shall, believe, the joyful day.
In the future lives the heart:
Is the present sad indeed?
'T is but a moment, all will pass;
Once in the past, it shall be dear.
1825.
[FRIENDSHIP.]
III. 201.
Thus it ever was and ever will be,
Such of old is the world wide:
The learned are many, the sages few,
Acquaintance many, but not a friend!
[FAME.]
III. 102.
Blessed who to himself has kept
His creation highest of the soul,
And from his fellows as from the graves
Expected not appreciation!
Blessed he who in silence sang
And the crown of fame not wearing,
By mob despised and forgotten,
Forsaken nameless has the world!
Deceiver greater than dreams of hope,
What is fame? The adorer's whisper?
Or the boor's persecution?
Or the rapture of the fool?
1824.
THE ANGEL.
IV. 108.
At the gates of Eden a tender angel
With drooping head was shining;
A demon gloomy and rebellious
Over hell's abyss was flying.
The Spirit of Denial, the Spirit of Doubt
The Spirit of Purity espied;
And a tender warmth unwittingly
Now first to know it learned he.
Adieu, he spake, thee I saw:
Not in vain hast thou shone before me;
Not all in the world have I hated,
Not all in the world have I scorned.
1827.
[HOME-SICKNESS.]
III. 131.
Mayhap not long am destined I
In exile peaceful to remain,
Of dear days of yore to sigh,
And rustic muse in quiet
With spirit calm to follow.
But even far, in foreign land,
In thought forever roam I shall
Around Trimountain mine:
By meadows, river, by its hills,
By garden, linden nigh the house.
Thus when darkens day the clear,
Alone from depths of grave,
Spirit home-longing
Into the native hall flies
To espy the loved ones with tender glance.
1825.
[INSANITY.]
III. 149.
God grant I grow not insane:
No, better the stick and beggar's bag:
No, better toil and hunger bear.
Not that I upon my reason
Such value place; not that I
Would fain not lose it.
If freedom to me they would leave
How I would lasciviously
For the gloomy forest rush!
In hot delirium I would sing
And unconscious would remain
With ravings wondrous and chaotic.
And listen would I to the waves
And gaze I would full of bliss
Into the empty heavens.
And free and strong then would I be
Like a storm the fields updigging,
Forest-trees uprooting.
But here's the trouble: if crazy once,
A fright thou art like pestilence,
And locked up now shalt thou be.
To a chain thee, fool, they 'll fasten
And through the gate, a circus beast,
Thee to nettle the people come.
And at night not hear shall I
Clear the voice of nightingale
Nor the forest's hollow sound,
But cries alone of companions mine
And the scolding guards of night
And a whizzing, of chains a ringing.
[DEATH-THOUGHTS.]
IV. 93.
Whether I roam along the noisy streets
Whether I enter the peopled temple,
Whether I sit by thoughtless youth,
Haunt my thoughts me everywhere.
I say, Swiftly go the years by:
However great our number now,
Must all descend the eternal vaults,--
Already struck has some one's hour.
And if I gaze upon the lonely oak
I think: the patriarch of the woods
Will survive my passing age
As he survived my father's age.
And if a tender babe I fondle
Already I mutter, Fare thee well!
I yield my place to thee. For me
'T is time to decay, to bloom for thee
Every year thus, every day
With death my thought I join
Of coming death the day
I seek among them to divine.
Where will Fortune send me death?
In battle? In wanderings, or on the waves
Or shall the valley neighboring
Receive my chilled dust?
But tho' the unfeeling body
Can everywhere alike decay,
Still I, my birthland nigh
Would have my body lie.
Let near the entrance to my grave
Cheerful youth be in play engaged,
And let indifferent creation
With beauty shine there eternally.
1829.
[RIGHTS.]
IV. 10.
Not dear I prize high-sounding rights
By which is turned more head than one;
Not murmur I that not granted the Gods to me
The blessed lot of discussing fates,
Of hindering kings from fighting one another;
And little care I whether free the press is.
All this you see are _words, words, words!_
Other, better rights, dear to me are;
Other, better freedom is my need....
To depend on rulers, or the mob--
Is not all the same it? God be with them!
To give account to none; to thyself alone
To serve and please; for power, for a livery
Nor soul, nor mind, nor neck to bend:
Now here, now there to roam in freedom
Nature's beauties divine admiring,
And before creations of art and inspiration
Melt silently in tender ecstasy--
This is bliss, these are rights!....
THE GYPSIES.
IV. 157.
Over the wooded banks,
In the hour of evening quiet,
Under the tents are song and bustle
And the fires are scattered.
Thee I greet, O happy race!
I recognize thy blazes,
I myself at other times
These tents would have followed.
With the early rays to-morrow
Shall disappear your freedom's trace,
Go you will--but not with you
Longer go shall the bard of you.
He alas, the changing lodgings,
And the pranks of days of yore
Has forgot for rural comforts
And for the quiet of a home.
THE DELIBASH.
IV. 155.
Cross-firing behind the hills:
Both camps watch, theirs and ours;
In front of Cossaks on the hill
Dashes 'long brave Delibash
O Delibash, not to the line come nigh,
Do have mercy on thy life;
Quick 't is over with thy frolic bold,
Pierced thou by the spear shalt be
Hey, Cossak, not to battle rush
The Delibash is swift as wind;
Cut he will with crooked sabre
From thy shoulders thy fearless head.
They rush with yell: are hand to hand;
And behold now what each befalls:
Already speared the Delibash is
Already headless the Cossak is!
Notes.
MY PEDIGREE.
These lines owe their origin to a public attack on Pushkin by Bulgarin,
a literary magnate of those days. Bulgarin disliked Pushkin and,
therefore, saw no merit in his poetry. But unable to argue against his
poetry, he argued against Pushkin's person, and abused the poet for
his fondness to refer to his ancient ancestry. Stung to the quick by
a childish paragraph in Bulgarin's organ, "The Northern Bee," Pushkin
wrote these lines. But on their publication which, I think, took place
some time after they were written, though they went into circulation
immediately, they made much bad blood. The Menshchikofs did not like to
be reminded of the cakes their ancestor sold, nor the Rasumofskys of
the fact that their countship was earned by the good voice of the first
of that name. And the Kutaissoffs did not like to be told that Count
Kutaissoff was originally Paul's shoe-black. The very pride in his
ancestors, which made Pushkin ridiculous in the eyes of his enemies,
made him forget the fact that selling cakes and blacking shoes, even
though they be an emperor's, is by no means a thing to be ashamed of;
and that, even if it were a thing to be ashamed of, the descendants
of evil-doers are by no means responsible for the deeds of their
ancestors.... The poem, therefore, is an excellent document, not only
for the history of the nobility of Russia, but also for that of poor
Pushkin's soul.
_Nobleman by cross._ There are two kinds of noblemen in Russia: those
who inherit their title, and those who acquire it. Whoever attains a
certain cross as a reward for his service under the government (not,
alas, _the_ cross of true nobility, Christ's cross!) becomes thereby a
"nobleman."
_Our nobility but recent is: the more recent it, the nobler 't is._
This was written fifty years ago, and thousands of miles away from
here. But one would almost believe these lines written in our day, and
at no great distance from Commonwealth Avenue,--so true is it that man
remains, after all, the same in all climes, at all times....
_Of Nizhny Novgorod the citizen plain._ The butcher Minin is here
meant, who, with Prince Pozharsky, delivered Moscow from the Poles just
before the Romanoffs were called to the throne.
_We upon it laid our hands._ Six Pushkins signed this call, and two had
to lay their hand to the paper, because they could not write their own
names.
_Simply Pushkin, not Moussin._ The Moussin-Pushkins of that day were a
very rich and influential family.
MY MONUMENT.
In its present form, this poem did not appear till 1881. After
Pushkin's death it appeared only when altered by Zhukofsky in several
places. The Alexander Column being the tallest monument in Russia,
Pushkin, writing for Russians, used that as an illustration; but the
government could not let the sacrilege pass,--of a _poet's_ monument
ever being taller, even figuratively, than a Russian emperor's. In
1837, therefore, the poet was made to say, "Napoleon's column." The
line in the fourth stanza, which speaks of Freedom, was altered
to "That I was useful by the living charm of verse," and in this
mutilated form this stanza is engraved on the poet's monument in
Moscow, unveiled in 1880.
MY MUSE.
I originally passed over this poem as unworthy of translation, because
I thought it not universal enough; because it seemed to me to express
not the human heart, but the individual heart,--Pushkin's heart. But
the great Byelinsky taught me better. He quotes these lines as a marvel
of classic, of Greek art. "See," he exclaims, "the Hellenic, the
artistic manner (and this is saying the same thing) in which Pushkin
has told us of his call, heard by him even in the days of his youth.
Yes, maugre the happy attempts of Batushkof in this direction before
Pushkin's day, _such_ verses had not been seen till Pushkin in the
Russian land!" And Byelinsky is right. He _saw._ The great critic is
thus an eye-opener, because he sees his author, and because seeing
him he cannot help loving him. For if men truly _knew_ one another
(assuming them to be unselfish), they would love one another.... A
hater is blind though he sees; a lover sees though he be blind. See,
also, about this piece, Introduction, § 4.
MY DEMON.
To this poem Pushkin added a note, which he intended to send to
the periodical press, as if it were the comment of a third person.
Referring to the report that the poet had a friend of his in mind
when he wrote this poem, and used Rayefsky as a model, he says: "It
seems to me those who believe this report are in error; at least, I
see in 'The Demon' a higher aim, a moral aim. Perhaps the bard wished
to typify Doubt. In life's best period, the heart? not as yet chilled
by experience, is open to everything beautiful. It then is trustful
and tender. But by-and-by the eternal contradictions of reality give
birth to doubt in the heart; this feeling is indeed agonizing, but it
lasts not long.... It disappears, but it carries away with it our best
and poetic prejudices of the spirit." [_Are_ they best, if they _are_
prejudices? _Is_ illusion truly poetic?--I. P.] Not, therefore, in
vain has Goethe the Great given the name the Spirit of Denial to man's
eternal enemy. And Pushkin wished to typify the Spirit of Denial.
REGRET.
See Introduction, §§ 16, 25.
THE BIRDLET.
This piece is not found among Pushkin's Lyrical Poems. It is a song
taken from a longer Narrative Poem, called "The Gypsies."
LOVE.
This poem is Pushkin all over. In four lines he has given a whole
drama with a world of pathos and tenderness in it. These four lines
give more instruction in the art of story-telling than volumes on the
"Art of Fiction." A magazine writer, who of the same incidents would
have woven out some twenty pages (of which no fewer than nineteen and
three-quarters would have been writ for the approval of check-book
critic, rather than of the art critic), would have really _told_ less
than Pushkin has here told,--so true is the preacher's criticism on his
own sermon: "Madame, if it had been shorter by half, it would have been
twice as long!"
JEALOUSY.
Of this piece I have already spoken in the Preface, § 7.
IN AN ALBUM.
This is an excellent example of Pushkin's _sentiment_, of which I spoke
in the Introduction, Chapter III. It is all the more entitled to the
consideration of Anglo-Saxon _a priori_ sentiment-haters (it is so easy
to keep to _a priori_ judgments, they are so convenient; they save
discussion!) because Pushkin wrote this piece when fully matured, at
the age of thirty, when his severe classic taste was already formed.
FIRST LOVE.
These lines are taken from the Narrative Poem, "The Prisoner of the
Caucasus."
SIGNS.
Of the more-than-Egyptian number of plagues with which poor Pushkin's
soul was afflicted, superstition was one. He believed in signs, and
sometimes gave up a journey when a hare ran across his road. Owing
to this superstition he once gave up a trip to St. Petersburg, which
probably would have cost him his life, had he made it. For on hearing
of the December rebellion, in which many of his friends took part, he
started for the capital, but the hare....
ELEGY.
The fourth volume of Pushkin's Works, in which this poem was first
published, struck Byelinsky with the poverty of its contents. "But in
the fourth volume of Pushkin's Poems," says he, "there is one precious
pearl which reminds us of the song of yore, of the bard of yore. It is
the elegy, 'The extinguished joy of crazy years.' Yes! such an elegy
can redeem not only a few tales, but even the entire volume of poetry!"
... (Byelinsky's Works, ii. 194.)
LOVE AND FREEDOM.
In the original this poem is called, "To Countess N. V. Kotshubey."
INSPIRING LOVE.
In the original this piece is headed, "To A. P. Kern."
THE GRACES.
Addressed to Princess S. A. Urussov.
TO THE POET.
This is the only poem Turgenef quotes in his speech at the unveiling of
the Pushkin monument in 1880. "Of course," he said, "you all know it,
but I cannot withstand the temptation to adorn my slim, meagre prosy
speech with this poetic gold."
THE TASK.
Byelinsky, who has taught me to appreciate much in Pushkin which I
otherwise would not have appreciated, speaks of this little piece as
"especially excellent" among Pushkin's anthological poems, written
in hexameter, and says, that a breath antique blows from them. Well,
I cannot agree with Byelinsky. There is, doubtless, a _sentimentlet_
in the piece,--a germ; but it is only a germ, incomplete, immature. I
would not have translated it (since its beauty, whatever that be, it
owes entirely to its form, which is untranslatable), but for the sake
of the reader, in justice to whom, a poem so highly thought of by
Byelinsky ought to be given, whatever my opinion of it.
QUESTIONINGS.
In the original this piece is headed, "26 May, 1828."
FAME.
The first cantos of Eugene Onyegin were issued with the "Dialogue
between the Bookseller and the Poet" as a preface. This poem is one of
the arguments of the poet in the dialogue; and, as it is an independent
song in itself, I have not hesitated to treat it as such.
HOME-SICKNESS.
In the original these lines are entitled, "To P. A. Ossipova."
DEATH-THOUGHTS.
In the original this poem is headed, "Stanzas."
RIGHTS.
In the original this is called, "From VI. Pindemonte." But this is
an original piece by Pushkin; at first he called it, "From Alfred
Musset." Evidently the censorship was likely to pass it as a work of a
foreign author where it would not as one of Pushkin; to his political
convictions Pushkin never, indeed, did dare to give free expression. He
never deliberately misled the government, but he did at times lead it
to believe more in his loyalty than was strictly in accordance with the
facts.