To all gives laws, as he gave life to all!
He rules the unnumbered circles bright with bliss,
That from the ends of heaven send forth their beams:
He rules the space, the infinite abyss,
The undefined and wandering ether-streams,
Where thousand, thousand stars and planets play--
What are the laws that guide them on their way?
They are no perishable records--laws
Written with pen and ink:--No! Allah spreads
The golden roll of nature: o’er our heads
Opens his glorious volume, and withdraws
The veil of ignorance: read the letters _there_,
That is the blazing, burning record, where
The letters are not idle _lines_, but _things_:
Read there the name of Allah, dazzling bright,
In _works_ of eloquence and _words_ of light!
Shut, shut all other books; and if thy soul,
Borne upward on devotion’s angel-wings,
Soar to the heaven, from earth and earth’s control,
Thou shalt perceive--shalt know the Deity.
His splendours then shall burst upon thy eye,
An effluence of noon-tide round thee roll,
Thy spirit glad with light and love;--a sun
Of pure philosophy to lead thee on.
THE GOLDEN PALACE.
CHERTOG TVOI VIZHDU.
SUNG AT MIDNIGHT IN THE GREEK CHURCHES THE LAST WEEK BEFORE EASTER.
_From the Sclavonic._
The golden palace of my God
Tow’ring above the clouds I see:
Beyond the cherubs’ bright abode,
Higher than angels’ thoughts can be:
How can I in those courts appear
Without a wedding garment on?
Conduct me, Thou life-giver, there,
Conduct me to Thy glorious throne!
And clothe me with Thy robes of light,
And lead me through sin’s darksome night,
My Saviour and my God!
MIDNIGHT HYMN
OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCHES, SUNG AT EASTER.
_Vskuiu mia esi oostavil?_
Why hast thou forsaken me?
Why, thou never-setting light,
Is Thy brightness veiled from me?
Why does this unusual night
Cloud Thy blest benignity?
I am lost without Thy ray,
Guide my wandering footsteps, Lord!
Light my dark and erring way
To the noon-tide of Thy word!
IZHE KHERUVIMIJ,
OR SONG OF CHERUBIM.
THE HYMN CHANTED IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCHES DURING THE PROCESSION OF THE
CUP.
See the glorious cherubim
Thronging round the Eternal’s throne;
Hark! they sing their holy hymn:
To the unknown Three in One.
‘All-supporting Deity--
‘Living spirit--praise to Thee!’
Rest, ye worldly tumults, rest!
Here let all be peace and joy:
Grief no more shall rend our breast,
Tears no more shall dew our eye.
Heaven-directed spirits rise
To the temple of the skies!
Join the ranks of angels bright,
Near th’ Eternal’s dazzling light.
Khvalim Boga[2].
CHILDREN’S OFFERING ON A PARENT’S BIRTH-DAY.
Not the first tribute of our lyre,
Not the first fruits of infant spring,
But flames from love’s long kindled fire,
And oft-repeated prayers we bring
To crown thy natal day.
’Tis not to-day that first we tell
(When was affection’s spirit mute?)
How long our hearts have loved--how well--
Nor tune our soft and votive flute,
Nor light the altar’s ray.
That altar is our household shrine--
Its flame--the bosom’s kindly heat:
Its offering, sympathy divine;
Its incense, as the may-dew sweet!
Accept thy children’s lay.
RULES FOR THE HEART AND THE UNDERSTANDING.
1.
O son of nature! let self-culture be
The object of thy earliest toils: as yet
Thy lamp burns bright--thy day shines gloriously--
Thou canst not labour when thy sun is set!
2.
Wouldst thou The Unseen Spirit see:
First learn to know thyself; and He
Will then be shadowed forth in thee!
3.
God is a spirit through creation’s whole,
As in this mortal tenement--the soul.
4.
The sun that gives the world its fairest light
Is not yon orb welcomed by the morning hour,
And by the eve expelled;--it is the power
Of an enlightening conscience pure and bright.
5.
Mark where thou standest first; and whence thou art come,
And whither goest, and straight speed thee home.
6.
The woe _to come_, the woe that’s _gone_,
Philosophy thinks calmly on:
But show me the philosopher
Who calmly bears the woes that _are_.
7.
How wise is he who marks the fleeting day
By acts of virtue as it rolls away!
8.
Be all thy views right forward, clear, and even:
The straightest line the soonest leads to heaven.
9.
Thou wouldst count all things, proud philosophy;
Now measure space and weigh eternity!
10.
Light first thy heart with virtue; then thy soul
With wisdom--purest joy shall o’er thee roll.
11.
The most perverted spirit has greatness in it,
The very savage bears a heart that’s noble.
12.
Virtue, though loveliest of all lovely things,
From modesty apart no more is fair;
And when her graceful veil aside she flings,
(Like ether opened to th’ intrusive air)
Loses her sweetest charms and stands a cypher there.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I have endeavoured to imitate the singular adaptation of words to
sound, of which the Russian language affords so many striking examples:
Original--
Tvoi dukh vsĭvaet vse boriushchii
V sikh--sikh svistjeshchikh vikhrei silakh
Srazhaiushchikhsa mezhdu Gor!
[2] Hallelujah.
BOGDANOVICH.
FROM THE DUSHENKA.--p. 8.
’Twere but vain daring thro’ dark time to range,
Chasing the shadowy forms of words, which change,
For ever restless, gave to beauty’s power:
All lived an hour, and perished with that hour:
The subject of the aspiring poet’s lay
Is that fair royal maiden, youngest child
Of the eastern monarch, whom with passion wild
Crowds honoured, loved and sigh’d for night and day,
She by the Greeks called Psyche--meaning
(According to our learned ones’ explaining)
A soul, or spirit:--our philosophers
Thinking that all that’s tender, fair and bright,
Must needs be hers,
Named her Dushenka[1];--thus
A word so sweet, so musical to us,
With all the charm of novelty,
O loveliest Psyche, was conferred on thee!
Conveyed from tongue to tongue, its throne it found
In memory’s archives:--its melodious sound
Now breathes the angel-harmony of love,
A music and a radiance from above.
FROM THE DUSHENKA.--p. 49.
Dushenka! Dushenka! the robes that thou wearest
Seem ever most lovely and fitting:
Whether clad like a queen of the east thou appearest,
Or plain as a shepherdess sitting
By the door of her cottage at evening’s calm tide,
Thou still art the charm of the world and its pride!
Thou fairest of saints that devotion has sainted,
Divinest of all the divine:--
All the pictures of beauty that art ever painted
Can give no idea of thine!
THE INEXPERIENCED SHEPHERDESS.
A POPULAR SONG.
I’m fourteen summers old, I trow,
’Tis time to look about me now:
’Twas only yesterday they said,
I was a silly, silly maid;--
’Tis time to look about me now.
The shepherd-swains so rudely stare,
I must reprove them, I declare;
This talks of beauty--_that_ of love--
I’m such a fool I can’t reprove--
I _must_ reprove them, I declare.
’Tis strange--but yet I hope no sin;
Something unwonted speaks within:
Love’s language is a mystery,
And yet I feel, and yet I see,--
O what is this that speaks within?
The shepherd cries, “I love thee, sweet;”
“And I love _thee_,” my lips repeat:
Kind words, they sound as sweet to me
As music’s fairest melody;
“I love thee,” oft my lips repeat.
His pledge he brings,--I’ll _not_ reprove;
O no! I’ll take that pledge of love;
To thee my guardian dog I’d give,
Could I without that guardian live:
But still I’ll take thy pledge of love.
My shepherd’s crook I’ll give to thee;--
O no! my father gave it me--
And treasures by a parent given,
From a fond child should ne’er be riven--
O no! my father gave it me.
But thou shalt have yon lambkin fair--
Nay! ’tis my mother’s fondest care;
For every day she joys to count
Each snowy lambkin on the mount;--
I’ll give thee then no lambkin fair.
But stay, my shepherd! wilt thou be
For ever faithful--fond to me?
A sweeter gift I’ll then impart,
And thou shalt have--a maiden’s heart,
If thou wilt give thy heart to me.
SONG FROM THE OLD RUSSIAN.
Hark! those tones of music stealing
Through yon wood at even:
Sweetest songs that breathe a feeling
Pure and bright as heaven.
Nightingales in chorus near thee,
All their notes are blending;
Then they stop their songs to hear thee,
Silent--unpretending.
SONG FROM THE OLD RUSSIAN.
What to the maiden has happened?
What to the gem of the village?
Ah! to the gem of the village.
Seated alone in her cottage.
Tremblingly turned to the window;
Ah! ever turned to the window.
Like the sweet bird in its prison,
Pining and panting for freedom;
Ah! how ’tis pining for freedom!
Crowds of her youthful companions
Come to console the lov’d maiden;
Ah! to console the lov’d maiden.
“Smile then, our sister! be joyful,
Clouds of dust cover the valley;
Oh! see, they cover the valley.
“Smile then, our sister! be joyful,
List to the hoof-beat of horses;
O! to the hoof-beat of horses.”
Then the maid looked through the window,
Saw the dust-clouds in the valley;
O! the dust-clouds in the valley:
Heard the hoof-beat of the horses,
Hurried away from the cottage;
O! to the valley she hurries.
“Welcome! welcome! thou lov’d one:”
See, she has sunk on his bosom;
O! she has sunk on his bosom.
Now all her grief is departed:
She has forsaken the window:
O! quite forsaken the window.
Now her eye looks on her lov’d one,
Beaming with brightness and beauty;
O! ’tis all brightness and beauty.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Dusha--Dushenka its diminutive, a word expressing great tenderness
and fondness.
DAVĬDOV.
WISDOM.
While honouring the grape’s ruby nectar,
All sportingly, laughingly gay;
We determined--I, Silvia, and Hector,
To drive old dame Wisdom away.
“O my children, take care,” said the beldame,
“Attend to these counsels of mine:
Get not tipsy! for danger is seldom
Remote from the goblet of wine.”
“With thee in his company, no man
Can err,” said our wag with a wink;
“But come, thou good-natured old woman,
There’s a drop in the goblet--and drink!”
She frown’d--but her scruples soon twisting,
Consented:--and smilingly said:
“So polite--there’s indeed no resisting,
For Wisdom was never ill-bred.”
She drank, but continued her teaching:
“Let the wise from indulgence refrain;”
And never gave over her preaching,
But to say “Fill the goblet again.”
And she drank, and she totter’d, but still she
Was talking and shaking her head:
Mutter’d “temperance”--“prudence”--until she
Was carried by Folly[1] to bed.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The original has _Love_.
KOSTROV.
THE VOW.
The rose is my favourite flower:
On its tablets of crimson I swore,
That up to my last living hour
I never would think of thee more.
I scarcely the record had made,
Ere Zephyr, in frolicsome play,
On his light, airy pinions convey’d
Both tablet and promise away.
HISTORY OF MAN.
ANONYMOUS.
What is man’s history? Born--living--dying--
Leaving the still shore for the troubled wave--
Struggling with storm-winds, over shipwrecks flying,
And casting anchor in the silent grave.
B.
NELEDINSKY MELETZKY.
SONG.
Under the oak-tree; near the rill,
Sits my fair maiden at evening still,
Singing her song, her song of love,
Sweetly it warbles through the grove.
The nightingale heard the heavenly tone,
And blended the music with his own:
My ears drink in the wondrous strain,
And my spirit re-echoes the song again.
How oft the zephyrs have brought to me
Delighted, those accents of harmony!
How oft have I blamed the jealous breeze
That scatter’d the music amidst the trees!
Listen awhile, thou nightingale!
Echo the song from hill to vale:
Though hill and vale enraptured be,
Sweeter the music sounds to _me_!
SONG.
To the streamlet I’ll repair,
Look upon its flight, and say:
“Bear, O fleeting streamlet! bear
All my griefs with thine away.”
Ah! I breathe the wish in vain!
In this silent solitude
Counted is each throb of pain;--
Rest is melancholy’s food.
Waves with waves unceasing blend,
Hurrying to their destiny:
Even so, thoughts with thoughts, and tend
All alike to misery.
And what grief so dark, so deep
As the grief interred within?
By the friend, for whom I weep,
All unnoticed, all unseen.
Yet, could I subdue my pain,
Soothe affection’s rankling smart,
Ne’er would I resume again
The lost empire of my heart.
Thou, my love! art sovereign there,
There thou hast a living shrine:
Let my portion be despair,
If the light of bliss be thine.
Loved by thee, O might I live,
’Neath the darkest, stormiest sky:
’Twere a blest alternative!
Grief is joy, if thou be nigh.
Every wish and every pray’r
Is a tribute paid to thee:
Every heart-beat--there, O there,
Thou hast mightiest sovereignty.
To thee, nameless one! to thee
Still my thoughts, my passions turn;
’Tis through thee alone I see,
Think, and feel, and breathe and burn.
If the woe in which I live,
Ever reach thy generous ear;
Pity not--but O forgive
Thy devoted worshipper!
In some hour of careless bliss,
Deign my bosom’s fire to prove;
Prove it with an icy kiss--
Thou shalt know how much I love!
SONG.
He whom misery, dark and dreary,
Robs of all his spirit’s strength;
Hopeless--but that wasted, weary,
Nature shall repose at length:
Not a joy to sparkle o’er him,
Not a ray of promised light;
Till the deep grave yawns before him,
Till his eye is closed in night.
Such am I;--time’s changes borrow
All their interest from thee:
Life is but a midnight sorrow,
Thou, life’s sun-shine, veiled from me.
But those hopes, with angels seated,
Life and death can ne’er subdue;
And the heart to thee related,
Needs must be immortal too.
Can that spirit ever perish,
Which divine emotions fill?
Thee on earth I loved to cherish,
Thee in heaven must cherish still;
Like a shadow to thee clinging,
Ever following--ever nigh;
Up to thee each look is springing,
Every word, and thought, and sigh.
Up to thee, my saint, my lover!
Up to thee my soul is led:
Spirit, wilt thou deign to hover
O’er my green and grassy bed?
Wilt thou from thy throne descending,
Catch thy fond one’s dying breath?
Wilt thou, near his tomb attending,
Consecrate the dreams of death?
NATIONAL SONGS.
I.
Upon its little turfy hill, the desert’s charm and pride,
The tall oak in his majesty extends his branches wide:
His shadow covers half the waste, and there he stands alone,
Like a poor soldier on the watch, a sad abandoned one!
And who, when wakes the glowing sun, thy friendly shade shall seek?
Or shield thee when the thunder rolls, and when the lightnings break?
No graceful pine protects thee now, no willow waves its head,
No sheltering ivy’s dark green leaves are midst thy branches spread!
Alas! ’tis sad to stand alone, thus banished from the grove;
But bitterer far for youth to mourn divided from his love!
Though gold and silver, wealth and fame, and honours he possess,
With none t’ enjoy them, none to share, they are but nothingness.
Cold is the converse of the world--a greeting, and no more!
And beauty’s converse colder still--a word, and all is o’er:
Some shun my presence, and from some scorn bids my spirit fly:
Though all are lovers, all are friends, till tempests veil the sky.
But where’s the breast where I may sleep, when those dark moments come?
For he who loved me cannot hear, he slumbers in the tomb!
Alas! I long have lost the joys of friend and family,
And the fair maid that I adore looks carelessly on me:
No aged parents on our heads their benedictions pour:
No children to our bosoms creep, or play upon our floor;
O take away your wealth, your fame, your honours, treasures vile,
And give me in their stead, a home--a love--and love’s sweet smile.
II.
ABSENCE.
Why wilt thou think that thy heart’s distress
May find relief in tear or sigh?
Thou art abandoned to loneliness--
To loneliness and to misery.
Severing oceans between you roll,
And frowning mountain-barriers rise;
She may not read thy faithful soul--
She may not witness tears or sighs.
Weak and wayward spirit to deem
That the wing of the zephyr will bear to her
Soft as the flight of childhood’s dream
The orisons of her worshipper!
That the gale’s light fragrant breath will bring
Music of thine to thy maiden’s ear,
What time the day-star triumphing
Looks from his throne on the waking sphere.
Yet cherish the hope--tho’ weak and wild,
Its promise of joy thy bosom may bless--
But thou--thou, sorrow’s devoted child!
Soon wilt be left to thy loneliness,
To thy loneliness and thy misery--
Oceans and mountains divide you far;
Never her smile shall light on thee,
Ne’er shalt thou welcome that heavenly star.
III.
Thou field of my own, thou field so fair!
So wide, extensive, fertile there!
Adorned with gems so gay and bright--
With flowers, and butterflies, and bees,
And plants, and shrubs, and leafy trees--
Thou hast but one ungrateful sight!
See there upon the broom-tree’s bough,
The young gray eagle flapping now,
O’er the raven black, that he tears asunder,
Whose warm red blood is dropping under,
And sprinkles the moistened ground below:
The raven black--a wild one he!
And the eagle gray--his enemy!
No swallow, gliding round and round
His homely happy nest, is found;--
But a mother is seen in the darksome vale,
Or sad by the raging ocean’s tide;
A sister sighs on the fountain’s side,
A lover weeps in the night-dews pale--
The sun shines forth--the dews are dried[1].
IV.[2]
A young maid sat upon the streamlet’s side,
And thought most tearfully on her bitter fate;
Her bitter fate, and on departed time--
Departed time--the glad, exulting time;
And there the lovely maiden robed herself,
She robed herself, with many adornings robed,
And waited anxious for her trusted friend--
Waited for her trusted friend:--a ruffian he!
He played the ruffian with the maid and fled:--
Alas! love’s flower of hope is withered!
Well may that lonely flower decay and die!
She calls in vain--she wipes her tears away:
Thee, rapid streamlet! they may fill, and roll
Over thy bosom--make thy bed of tears:
“I had adorned me for that faithless friend,
That faithless friend is fled:--he hath stolen all,
All my possessions but my grief:--that grief
He left in mercy, if that grief can kill.
Come, death! I veil me in thy shadows dim--
To thee I fly, as once I flew to him!”
V.
Upon that brow, so soft, so fair,
Why sit those frowns?-- O why should I
Plant bitter flowers of anger there?
O tell me, more than angel, why?
I have been wretched--did I e’er
Trouble thy peace with my distress?
Did I invite thee, say, to hear
The story of my wretchedness?
O no! I sigh’d midst rocks and groves,
That thou might’st never know I sigh’d:
I wept where stillest water roves:--
The tear but swell’d the silent tide.
Forget me--for my love shall be
Enough for both:--undying, bright--
Winged for an immortality,
And filling all the tomb with light.
VI.
DIRGE.
Not to-day he the young rose sought,
For she was fairer than the rose:
Hers be the cypress, dark as thought;
Yew that over the still grave grows.
Can ye remember her sigh, her tear
O’er a departed one, fair as she?
Such were a tribute meet for her,
Meet for us, and our misery.
O forget her sweet smiles--forget
All that she was:--she is nothing now.
Scatter the purple violet;
O’er her green pillow the snow-drop throw!
Come with the eve; let your requiem
Mount on the breeze o’er the grassy heap:
Thousand spirits shall join the hymn,
Watching over her slumbers deep.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This composition refers, no doubt, to some historical or
traditionary tale, without the knowledge of which it would seem
unintelligible. I translate it as rather a striking specimen of popular
Russian songs.
[2] The peculiarities of the original are preserved in this song; such
repetitions as here occur are quite characteristic of the national
poetry of Russia.
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICES.
LOMONOSOV.
Michael Vassiljevich Lomonosov was born in Cholmognie in 1711. He
was the son of a sailor. He studied Latin and Greek, rhetoric and
poetry, in Sakonospaskoe Uchilishchœ. In 1734 he entered the imperial
academy, and two years afterwards was sent to Germany as a student.
On his return to Petersburg he was appointed to the professorship of
Chemistry; in 1751 he was made associate of the academy, and in 1760
called to the directorship of the academical gymnasium and of the
university. He died in 1765.
The Petersburg Academy of Sciences published a complete collection
of his works, in sixteen volumes, which reached a third edition in
1804. They comprise the following remarkable list, exhibiting a rare
diversity of subjects: among them his prose productions are: _Kratkii
Lœtopisetz_, Short Russian Annals; _Drevnjeje Rossiiskaje Istorije_,
Oldest Russian History, from the beginning of the Russian people to
the death of the great prince Jaropolk the First, _i. e._ down to
the year 1054; _Rossiiskaje Grammatika_, Russian Grammar; _Kratkoe
Rukovodetvo k Krasnorœchiiu_, Short Introduction to Rhetoric; _Pismo o
pravilakh Rossiiskago Stikhomvorstva_, Letter on the Rules of Russian
Poetry; _Predislovie o polzœ Knig Tzerkovnĭkh_, Remarks on the Uses of
Church-Books; _Slovo Pokhvalnoe Imperatritzœ Elisavetœ I._, Eulogium on
the Empress Elizabeth (which he himself translated into Latin); _Slovo
pokhvalnoe Imperatoru Petru Velikomu_, Eulogium on Peter the Great;
_Slovo o polzœ Khimii_, On the Use of Chemistry; _Slovo o jevlenijekh
vosdushnĭkh ot Elektricheskoi silĭ proizkhodjeshchikh_, On Electrical
Phenomena; _Slovo o proizkhozhdenii sœta novuiu teriiu o tzvœtakh
predstavljeiushchee_, On the Origin of Light, exhibiting the new theory
of Colours; _Slovo o pozhdenii Metallov ot trjesenije zemli_, On the
Changes produced on Metals by earthquakes; _Rosuzhdenie o bolshei
tochnosti Morskago puti_, On the means of obtaining the greatest
correctness in Sea Voyages; _Jevlenie Venerĭ na solntzœ_, Appearance of
Venus on the Sun’s Disk; _Programma sochinennaje tri nachalæ chenije
is jesnenije Phisiki_, Programma, introductory to Lectures on Physic;
_Opisanie v nachalœ 1744 goda jevivshijesje Kometĭ_, Description of
the Comet of 1744; _Pervĭje osnovanije Metallurgii_, Introduction to
Metallurgy; _Shestnadtzat’ piset k J. J. Shuvalovu_, Sixteen Letters to
J. J. Shuvalov.
His poems are--two books of an Heroic Epic entitled _Peter Velikii_,
Peter the Great; _Tamira i Selim_, a Tragedy; _Demophont_, a Tragedy;
_Pismo o Pol’sœ Stekla_, A Poetical Epistle on the Merits of Glass,
addressed to Shuvalov, of which a French prose translation was
published in Paris in 1800; _Oda na Shchastiee_, Ode to Happiness,
from the French of J. B. Rousseau; _Vanchannaje nadezhda Rossiiskoi
Imperii_, The Garlanded Hope of the Russian Empire, from the German of
Professor Junker; eleven spiritual odes; encomiastic odes; forty-nine
laudatory inscriptions; poem on a firework; _Polydore_, an Idyl, and
sundry smaller pieces; imitations of Anacreon, poetical epistles,
translations, &c. &c.
Besides his philosophical prose writings, he published _Rasgovor v
tzarstvœ Mertvĭkh_, Dialogue in the Realms of Death, between Alexander
the Great, Hannibal, and Scipio, from the Greek of Lucian; and
_Rasgavor utro_, A Discourse on Morning, from Erasmus.
DERZHAVIN.
Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin was born at Kasan on the 3d of July, 1736.
The elements of instruction were given to him in the house of his
parents; he then studied in private academies, and afterwards completed
his education in the imperial gymnasium. In 1760 he was inscribed in
the engineer military service; and in the following year, as a reward
for his great progress in the mathematics, and for his excellent
description of the Bulgarian ruins on the banks of the Wolga, he was
placed in the ranks of the Preobrashenshe regiment. From the year 1762
he was promoted through the different gradations to the rank of ensign,
which he held in 1772, and he obtained great credit for his prudence
and ability while engaged as lieutenant in the corps sent to reduce
Pugachev in 1774. He advanced uninterruptedly in his military career
till in 1784 he was made a counsellor of state, and appointed to the
government first of Oloretz and afterwards of Tambov. In 1791 the
Empress Catherine the Second gave him the office of secretary of state;
in 1793 he was called to the senate, and the next year he was made
president of the college of Commerce. In the year 1800 he was appointed
to the post of public cashier, and in 1802 to that of minister of
justice. His official career was soon after closed by his retiring on
his full allowance, in the evening of his days, to the enjoyment of the
fruits of his long and active labours.
Such a life would appear little calculated for the pursuit of
intellectual pleasures, or for the cultivation of poetical talents; but
the energies of these seem to be alike uninfluenced by the burthens of
pomp or the privations of poverty. None is too high to bend down to the
attractive voice of song--none too low to be raised by the awakening
call of the lyre.