eath the hard ice. Colour has faded. Sound has died. Ice has fettered everything. Only the stream’s immortal life does not submit to winter’s omnipotent will: the water flows on and as it babbles it troubles the deadly still. .......... So in the orphaned breast, murdered by the winter of existence, happy youth no longer flows, and the stream no longer sports, although beneath the icy bark there is still life, there’s still a murmur, and at times there can be heard the stream’s mysterious whisper. 115. I sit deep in thought and alone, gazing at dying coals by tears blurred. Sadly thinking of past days, I look for ways to speak my gloom. I find no words. .......... The past - well, has there been a past? What’s now - will that forever last? It will go by. It will go by as everything will pass. Drowning in time’s dark morass, each year will fly. ......... Year after year, age on age! Why does man presume to rage? Such chaff is man! He’ll wither very quickly too. Each summer, blossom, chaff anew is nature’s plan. .......... All that we knew once more we’ll know. Once again will roses grow. Thorns will too. But you, my flower, pale, forlorn, in summer you won’t be reborn. Life’s not for you. .......... The hand that plucked you was my own. The bliss, the grief I felt is known only on high. Stay, then, upon my breast until all breath of love in it is stilled, the final sigh. 116. Earth’s face is still a melancholy thing, although the air is breathing spring, and in a field a dead stalk shivers while foliage on the pine-trees quivers. As Nature’s waiting to revive, already through her thinning dreams she senses that spring is alive and, though unknowingly, she beams. .......... You slept too, my soul - What is it now exciting you, caressing and kissing your sleep and dressing your dreams in gold? Snow-blocks, melting, glisten, skies gleam bluely, blood is playing. Is this spring’s tender, gentle bliss? Can this be female love I’m sensing? 117. Winter’s spite is vain for its time has come at last. Knocking at the panes, spring has cast it out and everything’s in turmoil, bustling Winter out, and skylarks in the blueness have taken up the shout. Winter is still fussing and grumbling at the spring. The latter laughs right in her face, her noise is louder still. The evil sorceress is wild. She grabs a pile of snow. She runs away and starts to throw it at the pretty child. That hardly causes Spring much grief: she washes in the snow, and just to spite her enemy, her cheeks begin to glow. 118. Brilliant snow shone in the valley, has melted, has gone. Spring crops gleam in the valley. They will fade, they will go. Which century now stands before me on snow-summits, sparkling white? Now the morning light is sowing red, fresh roses on their heights. 119. THE FOUNTAIN Look, a living cloud, the radiant fountain throws its flaming spray, scattering moist mist towards the sun, tossing rays up to the sky, touching forbidden heights and once again, a fire-coloured dust, is sentenced to fall back to earth. .......... Water-course of human thought, inexhaustible water-course! What incomprehensible law tosses and urges you up there? How greedily you reach out to the sky! But an invisible, fateful hand diffracts and pulls your stubborn stream in showers of spray back down to the land! 120. My soul would like to be a star, but not when these bright things in midnight skies, like living eyes, shine, stare upon, gaze at our sleepy earth-world from afar. No, but during daytime when, as if they’re hidden in a searing sunbeam-haze, in pure, unseen expanses, like deities, to burn more brightly they are bidden. 121. Nature is not what you think it is: it’s not a mould, not a soulless face. It has a soul. It has freedom. It has love. It has a tongue. .......... You see a leaf and bloom on a tree: did some gardener glue them on? Or in a kindred womb did the fruit ripen by the play of outer, alien forces? .......... They don’t see and they are deaf, living in this world as if they were blind. Suns don’t breathe for them. The ocean’s waves possess no life. .......... Rays have never come down into their soul. Spring has never blossomed in their breast. Forests don’t talk in their presence and starry nights are dumb for them. .......... In unearthly tongues, agitating rivers and woods, they’ve never held discourse with a friendly storm! .......... The fault’s not theirs. Can a deaf-mute understand an organ’s life? Alas for them, they’d be unmoved by the voice of their own mother! 122. There’s not a spark of feeling in your eyes. When you speak, your words are lies and there’s no soul in you. Stand fast, my heart, right to the end: godless, creation has to fend, so praying’s pointless too. 123. I love your eyes, dear, their fiery-playful games, their sudden upward glances slowly looking all around like lightning-flames. .......... There’s a more potent spell: eyes lower. A mouth hungers. Lids almost close. Sullen arousal glows. 124. Last night in enchanted dreams, the moon’s last ray languidly lit your lashes, while in late sleep you lay. Silence went quiet around you, shadows frowned darker, the even movements of your breast flowed louder through the air. Quiet-streaming, quiet-wafting, as if a breeze had borne it in, dimly lilac, hazily light through your bedroom came a fluttering, an invisible running across rugs which were glimmering, clutching the edge of the blankets and the sides of the bed, crawling, unfolding like a ribbon onto your bed like a writhing snake, teasing beneath your bed curtain until with a life-shining quiver it felt your young breasts, with a loud, rosy cry it opened your lashes, felt their silk .... caressed .... 125. JANUARY 29TH., 1837 Who fired the shot? Who stilled the life which quivered in the poet’s heart? In whose hands was the fragile phial shivered? Innocent or deserving blame, in the eyes of earthly justice and branded forever by heaven, Regicide will be his name. Into a dark, timeless deep you were suddenly swept from existence. Peace to you, poet! I wish you bright peace in your sleep. In spite of vain discourse, your lot has been divine and great. You were the god’s mouthpiece, but you lived. In your veins, warm blood coursed! This noble blood has silenced jeers staining honour’s name. Now in the sacred shade you rest, beneath the banner of our people’s tears. Let Him pass judgement! He can hear the flow of blood spilled. You will be first love in a youthful breast: in Russia’s heart eternally dear! 126. DECEMBER 1ST., 1837 So, here’s where we’re fated to say our final farewell, farewell to everything by which we lived, which killed your life, reducing it to ashes in your tormented breast! .......... Farewell. After many, many years you’ll recall this land with a shudder, this coast, these hot noons, where eternal brightness, long blossoming reign, where, with the breath of late, pale roses, December’s air is warmed. 127. THE ITALIAN VILLA Bidding farewell to the days, leaving cares to sleep beneath the cypresses, blissfully joining the blessed dead, it slumbered in a blessed haze. Now, when many years have passed, guarded by magic sleep in its flowery keep, it submits to heaven’s desires. Heaven’s care is so loving! Warm southern winters, many a summer have wafted here in semi-slumber, their wings not even brushing ... Then we came in ... stepped into the trance. So dark, so peaceful for so long! The fountain sang a still and shapely song. Through a window a cypress cast us a glance. Suddenly - turmoil: a spasm quivered through the branches. The fountain fell silent, yet from it some wondrous sound, muffled, as if in sleep, shivered. What was it, love? Had something made that wicked life which coursed through our veins, turbulently hot, step over a forbidden threshold? 128. Is it so long, blessed South since you and I stood face to face and, like a god unmasked, you revealed yourself to me, a new arrival, opening your ways to this visitor from the North? It’s a long time - though without rapture, but with good reason moved by new feelings - since I have listened intently to the song of the great Mediterranean waves! And their song, as in times gone by, was full of harmony just as when, from a kindred bosom, the bright cypress rose in beauty. They have not changed today. As before, they glisten noisily and across their azure plain sacred spectres glide. But I have had to say farewell, called to the North once more. Across me once again there falls its endless leaden sky. there, at the world’s frontier, in the golden, bright South, I see you again at a distance. You glisten, fairer still, brighter, fresher. More audible is your voice reaching out to my soul! 129. What gentle, tender joy, what enamoured pangs are in your eyes, your passionate gaze alighting on him! Empty of thoughts, mute ... mute as if stricken by heavenly fire! Suddenly, over-filled with sensation, from your heart being full, shuddering, crying, you threw yourself down ... But soon good sleep, like a child’s, free of cares, visited the silk of your lashes, and your head lowered onto his arms, and more tenderly than a mother, he cared, he petted you ... Your weeping died on your lips ... your breathing was even, and your sleep was quiet and sweet. And now... Ah, if you could have dreamed what the future held for us both, as if stung, you’d have woken with a scream or passed into a different dream. 130. Tired by travel, we made a stop and rested. Our brows felt the same shade. Our eyes lifted to the distant skyline. .......... Time climbs its slope, inflexibly. It pulls apart what it once tethered. Some power whips man on, invisibly. Sad, alone, through endless space he falls. Now, friend, have you ever sought to find again that life we spent together? What things befall a look, a tone of voice, debris of thoughts? That which exists no longer - did we dream it all? 131. Watch the west flaming up in evening’s dull glow, the east darkly clothing itself in a cold, blue-grey comb! Are they enemies? Or is the sun one for both? With its immovable wholeness dividing, does it unite them? 132. SPRING No matter how oppressive is the hand of fate, is human deceit, no matter how deeply they furrow our brows, wound our hearts, no matter how severe are the trials to which we daily must succumb, what can resist the breath of and that first encounter with spring! .......... Spring does not know us, us, our grief, our malice ... Her gaze shines with immortality. There’s not a wrinkle on her brow. She obeys her own laws. At the appropriate time she flies down, bright, blissfully indifferent, as befits a goddess. .......... She scatters blossoms on the earth. She is fresh, like the first spring. Was there another before? She doesn’t need to know. The sky is cloud-covered. These clouds are her own, leaving not a trace of the extinct life of former springs. .......... Roses do not sign about the past, nor do nightingales sing it. Dawn does not shed tears of fragrance for the past, and terror of the ineluctable end does not flow from trees and branches. Their life, like the boundless ocean, is entirely poured into the present. .......... All the game, the sacrifice of individual life! Come, throw off the deceit of feelings and throw yourself lustily, omnipotently into this life-creating ocean! Come on, in its ethereal stream wash your suffering breast and in this divinely all-peaceful life for just one moment be a guest! 133. DAY AND NIGHT On to the secret world of spirits, across this nameless chasm, a cloth of gold has been draped by the high will of the gods. This glittering cover is day, day, which enlivens the earth-born, heals the suffering soul, friend of gods and man! .......... Day will fade. Night has come. It’s here, and from the fated world it rips the cover of plenty and tosses it aside, revealing the abyss with all its mists and fearsome sights. No wall divides us from them, which is why we’re afraid of the night! 134. Don’t believe the poet, girl! Don’t ever make the dread mistake of calling him your own, and, more than flames, and more than anger from above, be sure you fear the poet’s love! .......... Don’t think you’ll win the poet’s heart with your little-girlish soul. The flames of lust you won’t conceal behind a virgin’s delicate veil. .......... Omnipotent and elemental, the poet hides an inner weakness: he may not want to harm you, girl, but his crown will scorch your maiden’s curls! .......... The rabble, never thinking, may praise or revile him, but they will soon see that he does not sting the heart like a snake, he sucks it like a bee. .......... The poet’s hand is pure: your sanctuary will be respected, but he might choke the life from you by chance, beyond the clouds you might well be abducted! 135. With such a lovely, sympathetic greeting from an unattainable height I beg you not to confuse the poet, not to test his dream! .......... He spends his life forgotten in the crowd. At times their passions find him. I know the poet’s superstitious, but he rarely serves the powerful. .......... Before all earthly idols he walks and bows his head, or else he stands before them, confused and timorous, yet proud, .......... and should a living word fall suddenly from their lips, should he, through earthly grandeur, see all the charms of a female flash, .......... and fully, humanly aware of their omnipotent beauty, should wondrously refined features shine on him like a sudden dawn, .......... ah, how his heart takes fire! how he exults, how charming he becomes! He may be useless at serving, but he knows how to revere! 136. TO HANKA Must we stay apart forever? Isn’t it time that we woke up, shaking hands with relatives and friends? .......... We’ve been blind for centuries and, like wretched blind men, have wandered directionless, lost, aimlessly. .......... When by chance we bumped into each other, more than once, bloody rivers flowed and swords tore kindred breasts. .......... The sea of this mad enmity bore fruit a hundredfold: more than once a tribe has perished, or ended up in exile. .......... Non-believers, foreign hate divided us, scattered us: the Germans stole the homes of some, the Turks preferred to violate. .......... Now in this dark night, here on the heights of Prague, the valiant warrior’s modest hand has lit a beacon in the gloom. ......... Oh, what rays have lit up all parts! Clearly now we see the face of this entire Slavonic land! .......... Mountains, steppes and coasts are illuminated by this miraculous day, from the Neva to Montenegro, from the Carpathians to the Urals. .......... Dawn breaks over Warsaw, Kiev has opened its eyes. Vysehrad has begun to speak with golden-domed Moscow! .......... The dialects of our brothers once again make sense. Now that they’re awake, the grandsons see what they grandparents only dreamed of! 137. THE BANNER AND THE WORD Into a bloody storm, through the flames of war, announcing salvation, the Russian Banner had led you to immortal victory. In memory of this sacred union, it’s not surprising that behind the Russian Banner the Russian Word has come to you in kinship. 138. FROM A RUSSIAN, HAVING READ EXTRACTS FROM MISTER MICKIEWICZ’S LECTURES. May the Heavenly King bless your happy enterprise, son of undoubted calling, son of reconciling love. .......... Not in vain have you boldly cast aside the tatters from your shoulders. God has conquered, your eyes are open. You were a poet, now you are a prophet. .......... We sense the approach of Light: your inspired Word, like a herald of the New Testament, has been heard throughout the Slavonic World. .......... We sense the Light, the Time is near, the final bulwark has crumbled. Rise up, scattered race, unite, merge into one People. .......... Leap up, not as Poland, not as Russia, rise up, you Slavonic Family! Throwing off your sleep, be the first to utter the words: ‘Here I am!’ .......... You, supernaturally able to heal all enmity in yourself, on your enlightened soul let God’s Grace repose! 139. Unreal man’s so simple to efface, such a trifle when he’s present, such a nothing when he’s absent. A single point is all his life can span. His absence is the whole of space! 140. I stood by the Neva, my gaze fixed on the giant of St. Isaac’s. Its golden cupola was glinting through a murk of icy haze. .......... Timid clouds sailed onto winter’s night sky. Frozen in a deathly still beneath the ice, the current paled. .......... Sad, silent memories came of lands whose sun burns. At this very moment, Genoa’s luxuriant gulf’s aflame. .......... Wizard of northern lands, am I caught by your enchantment? Am I really held in fetters against you by your granite hand? .......... If only some spirit passing by, wafted through the misty evening, could swiftly carry me from here back to my sultry, southern skies! 141. COLUMBUS A crown for you, Columbus! Boldly mapping the outlines of Earth and once for all fulfilling Destiny’s unfinished business, you rent the veil with your godlike hand and into God’s light, from the limitless murk, you pulled a new world behind you, an unknown world, an unexpected one. .......... Thus are linked and united forever in a union of blood that reasoning genius of man and nature’s creative power. Let him but utter a secret word and nature, with a whole new world, is forever ready to respond to his kindred voice! 142. A REVERIE “What gift can I make at the end of the year? Winter’s wind has killed the turf, flowers die and leaves have faded. At this dead time, no living things stir.” .......... Many a sweet and dear leaf was kept in your herbarium. Your loving fingers wake in fragrant pages a History of a love which slept, .......... a History of youthful, living recollections, a History which will never know oblivion, and on whose embers you blew for just a moment, glowing again in your faithful collection. .......... You suddenly found two flowers while leafing through dried remains, and by some secret magic in my hands they regained their colours. .......... Two flowers, both of them fair, living red, rare of scent, a shining rose, a glistening carnation. Perfume and flame bathed the pair. .......... And you’d like to see some meaning in this strange enigma. Need I explain it, my dear? You insist? Very well, I agree. .......... When a flower starts to wane, sadly losing colour, withering, and you bring it near a fire you will see it bloom again. .......... So it happens that when we face the fatal day, dreams and designs act thus: when memories’ pallor dulls our hearts, they bloom again in Death’s embrace. 143. THE SEA AND THE CLIFF Raging, seething, lashing, whistling, roaring, leaping for the skies, the unassailable skies ... Is it hell, some hellish force beneath the boiling cauldron churning up the deeps, some hellish fire turning the sea-world upside down? .......... Frenzied wave-onslaught .... Nothing stops it, nothing can ... Roars, whistles, screams, howls ... Smashing cliffs along the coast ... Peaceful, haughty, unmoved by the clowning sea, motionless, changeless, born at creation, you stand, our titan! .......... Battle-maddened, leaping into fateful struggle waves come howling back to beat against your granite face... The changeless stone dashes aside the noisy onslaught. Scattered waters fall apart. Impotent gusts fall grumbling away. .......... Stand, mighty cliff! Just wait awhile. The thundering waves will tire of warring with your foot. Exhausted by its spiteful game the sea will be subdued. Forget this howling affray. Beneath the foot of the titan, the waves will slink away. 144. A heavy sky which night has prematurely assailed.... A monstrous river-floe, ice-dulled... Powder-snow is flailed around granite quays, threaded, pearled. The sea’s closed in. The living are hurled into retreat, the living, troubled world. In the dim dusk-glow lulled, the pole attracts: its faithful city’s pulled. 145. Longing, desires still ravage my soul which strives to reach you. In recollection’s twilight I try to catch your image. I can’t forget your face. It is a lovely constellation, timeless, in every place, unreachable, not knowing fluctuation. 146. By which can human wisdom more surely be enhanced: German unity’s Babylonian tower, or the sly republican structure of the outrages witnessed in France. 147. A cloud bank, bright and high covers earth with fleeing shades. “That’s our life”, you sighed, “not the cloud lit up by rays, but that shadow running away.” 148. TO RUSSIAN WOMAN Far from the sun and nature, far from light and art, far from life and love your youth flashes by. Living feelings deadened, dissipated dreams ... Your life flows by invisibly in this deserted, nameless place on this unnoticed earth, as a misty cloud just disappears in the dull and hazy sky of endless autumn’s murk ... 149. A RUSSIAN GEOGRAPHY Moscow and Peter’s town, the city of Constantine, these are the cherished capitals of the Russian monarchy. But where is their limit? And where are their frontiers to the north, the east, the south and the setting sun? The Fates will reveal them to future generations. .......... Seven internal seas and seven great rivers from the Nile to the Neva, from the Elbe to China, from the Volga to the Euphrates, the Ganges to the Danube. This is the Russian empire and it will never pass away, just as the Spirit foretold and Daniel prophesied. 150. Holy night has climbed across the sky, joyful, dear day, a golden coverlet, is folded back, that cover cast across the chasm. Like a vision, the outer world has faded. Like an orphan, man stands impotent and naked, facing the dark abyss. Abandoned to himself, his intellect is obsolete, his thought is homeless. In a great ravine he’s immersed, in his soul, and from outside there’s no support, no limit ... Like a long-gone dream, that which was life-bright appears, and in the alien, in the unresolved, in the nocturnal, his birthright looms clear. 151. Timidly, unwillingly sun looks at fields. Thunder rumbles in a cloud ... Earth frowns. .......... Gusts of warm wind ... Distant growls, spots of rain ... Greening meadows greener under threat of storm. .......... Splitting a cloud - a blue lightning-streak ... White, flying flame hems its edge. .......... More raindrops... Dust eddied up from fields. Thunder claps are bolder, angrier. .......... Once more peeks the sun askance at fields... Drowning in brilliance - the crumpled land. 152. So once again we meet, unlovely relative, where I first thought, first felt. Now, misty-eyed in the light of fading day, my childhood looks at me. .......... Ah, feeble, poor, unclear spectre of forgotten, enigmatic happiness! Faithless, detached, I gaze at you, fleeting guest. You’ve become so alien to my gaze, like my little brother who died at birth. .......... No, it wasn’t here, my deserted land, my soul was never at home here. Not here did I celebrate the flowering of wonderful youth’s great feast. Oh, not in this earth did I bury everything by which I lived, everything I held so dear! 153. Quiet evening, late in summer, as the stars glow in the heavens, as beneath their dusky glimmer slumbering cornfields ripen... in their silent, soothing radiance, in the stillness of the night, undulating, golden wavelets in the moonlight splashed with white... 154. When clinging, murderous cares sicken us, when, like a pile of stones, life lies on us, it happens sometimes, God knows how, that something joyfully sudden warms our bones. The past embraces, fans around us. That fearsome burden briefly rises from us. ........ So sometimes, in the fall, when fields are empty, copses bare, skies are pale and duller are the dales, a warm, moist breeze can blow, and before it a dead leaf rolls. It’s just as if spring had poured over our souls. 155. Tears of people, tears of people, morning and evening you fall, pouring invisibly, poured in obscurity, never an end to you, flowing so constantly, flowing as rain in its torrents careers deep in the autumn, when night covers all. 156. TO THE MOST HONOURABLE FILIPP FILIPPOVICH VIGEL ON HIS NAME DAY As a token of my love, accept this picture, understanding it, of course, and the value which we place on you, though don’t forget, if you’ll forgive my saying, we like you a lot, though it’s not for your face. 157. Across an azure plain of water, chugging on its trusty way, a fire-breathing, stormy-tempered sea-snake bore us all away. .......... From the sky the stars shone down, sparkling was the water’s swell. Drops of sea-dust in a blizzard swirled and soared and round us fell. .......... On the deck we sat together, many overcome by sleep. Wheels were singing ever louder, stirring up the noisy deep. ......... Now our happy group fell silent, women’s chatter, women’s noise, and, supported by fair elbows, pleasant thoughts and dreams were poised. .......... On the river dreams are drifting, under the magic moon they play. On the quiet-breathing waters to a lullaby they sway! 158. DAYBREAK Not for the first time is the cock crowing. It’s crowing animatedly, briskly and boldly. In the sky the moon has gown paler. The Bosphorous waters have begun to glow red. The bells are still silent, but dawn is aglow in the east. Endless night has passed by. Soon there will come the bright day. .......... Russia, arise! Your time is at hand! Arise to serve Christ! Crossing yourself, has the time not arrived to strike the bell in the city of Tsargrad? .......... Ring out your good news. May it resound throughout the East! It’s calling and awaking you. Be valiant, arise and gird yourselves for battle! .......... Clothe your breast in the armour of faith, and go with God, almighty giant! Oh Russia, the dawning day is great, the universal, Orthodox day! 159. Once again I see your eyes. Your southern gaze alone has dissipated the slumberous cold of a sad, Cymmerian night. Before me rises up once more a different land, a native land, as if through the sins of their fathers it’s a paradise perished for the sons. .......... Stately laurels rustle, ripple the pale blue air. The quiet breathing of the sea wafts through summer heat. All day ripening in the sun - the golden vine. A fabulous past of ancient tales wafted from marble arcades. .......... Like an ugly dream the fateful north has vanished, the light, fair vault of the sky shines above me. Once again with avid eyes drinking in this bracing light, beneath those pure rays I recognise a magic land. 160. How he loved the native firs of his beloved Savoy. How melodiously their boughs rustled above his head. With what sensual thought their majestically gloomy dark, wild, strange plaint entranced his mind. 161. LAMARTINE Apollo’s lyre, oracle of the gods, in his hands is the harp of Aiolos, and his thoughts are winged, mellifluous, as they float in the air, lulled by his words. 162. NAPOLEON 1 Revolution’s Son, with a fearsome mother fearlessly you entered battle, drained of your strength in the struggle. Your despotic genius could not overcome her! Impossible conflict, pointless labour! You carried it all in yourself. 2 Two demons served him. Two forces merged wondrously within him: in his head, eagles soared, in his breast, serpents writhed: a daring eagle-flight of wide-spanned inspirations: and in the very riot of audacity there was a calculating serpent. Yet no sanctifying power, a force of which the mind cannot conceive, illuminated his soul nor stepped towards him. He was of earth, not God’s flame. He proudly sailed, despised the sea, but on the hidden reef of faith his fragile boat was smashed. 3 And there you stood, and Russia stood before you! Prescient sorcerer sensing battle, you yourself uttered the fateful words: ‘Let her destiny come about!’ Your oath was not in vain: Fate echoed your voice! But from exile you tossed another riddle at the fateful echo. Years have passed. Now back from cramped exile the corpse has returned to its native land. On the banks of the river you loved, turbulent spirit, you’ve rested now, but you sleep lightly. Tormented during the night, sometimes you will rise. You’ll gaze at the East. Suddenly, alarmed, you’ll flee, as if you’d sensed the breeze which ushers in the dawn. 163. The loving heart cowers, admitting sadness, anguish, fear. I cry “Stop!” to the fleeing hours. “The moment could be here when a chasm yawns between us”. ......... Frightful worry, implacable terror constrict my wearied heart. I’ve lived too much for both of us. The past has weighed too heavy on my back. Let’s keep our love apart from memory. Let history never claim us. 164. POETRY Through conflagration, through thunder’s roars, through seething passion, burning in elemental strife, she comes to us from on high, to earth-bound children, with her gaze, her clear eyes bright-shining, and across the mutinous seas a gentle oil of peace cups in her palm ... and pours. 165. ROME AT NIGHT Rome sleeps in the blue night. The moon has risen, taken possession. The city slumbers in unpeopled grandeur, its thoroughfares awash in glorious light. .......... How sweetly Rome lies slumbering in the rays. How akin is the moon with Rome’s ancient dust, as if the lunar world, the sleeping city, were one and the same: magic, they’ve outlived their days! 166. VENICE The doge of free Venice, among its azure ripples, a groom porphyrogenitus, to great and wide acclaim, yearly wed his Adriatic. .......... Not for nothing did he cast his ring into these waters: entire aeons, not just years, (peoples marvelled at the wonder) did this magic warrior-ring bind them with its spell. .......... Loving, peaceful did the couple settle to a life of fame. Three centuries, or maybe four, mightier and wider growing, spreading out into the world, the shadow of the lion’s wing. .......... And now? Into oblivion’s waves so many rings were thrown! Generations came and went. These wedding rings have now become the links of heavy chains! 167. Feasting finished, choirs quiet, wine-jugs drained, fruit-baskets scattered, glasses left with wine unfinished, crumpled party crowns on heads, only incense-sticks still smoking, in the bright, deserted chamber, having feasted, late in rising, stars were shining in the sky, night had reached its midway point. .......... Above the restless city, over courts and houses, thoroughfares and noisy clatter and the dull, red lighting, over sleepless crowds of people, over all this earthly tumult, in the high, too distant heavens pure stars were burning, answering the gaze of mortals with their uncorrupted shining. 168. PROPHECY This is not the murmur of rumour in the land. This news was not just born for us. It is an ancient voice! A voice from on high: “The fourth age comes to a close. It will come to pass and the hour will crash out!” ......... Then Sofia’s ancient vaults will once more house Christ’s altar in restored Byzantium. Fall before it, oh Tsar of Russia. Rise as Tsar of all the Slavs! 169. For the third year now, the tribes have run amok. Spring has come. With every spring, like a flock of wild birds before a storm, the noise is more alarming. The cries become a Babel. .......... Princes and rulers weighed by heavy thoughts, fingers trembling on the reins, minds depressed by ominous anguish. People’s dreams are wild as fever. .......... But God is with us! Tearing from its bed, a mad thing, full of threat and gloom, suddenly rushing at us is the abyss! .......... But your gaze did not darken! The wind screamed. But... “It will not be so!” You spake, and once again the waters fell away. 170. Your cowardice can’t be measured, you dwarf! Squirm and wriggle as much as you like, you’ll not entice holy Russia with your sceptical soul. .......... Or will she renounce all her sacred hopes, using up all her convictions, that which is her calling, just for the likes of you? .......... Or are you so dear to providence, so friendly with it, at one with each other that, caring for your sloth, it suddenly stops dead? .......... Let whoever does not believe in holy Russia get on with it, as long as she believes in herself, and God will not postpone victories to please people’s cowardice. .......... What was promised her by the fates way back in her cradle, bequeathed by the ages, by the faith of all her tsars, ......... what Oleg’s troops went out to achieve by the sword, what Catherine’s eagle covered with its wings: .......... the crown and sceptre of Byzantium, you won’t deprive us of that! The universal fate of Russia, No! You’ll not block that off! 171. Lord, send your comfort to him who, during summer’s scorching heat, like some poor beggar past a garden, along a hot road drags his weary feet, .......... who gazes in passing across a fence at the shades of trees, at valleys’ golden grain and at the inaccessible coolness of softly bright, luxuriant plains. .......... Not for him have forests woven a welcome with their boughts and fronds; not for him have fountains scattered a misty haze above their ponds. .......... A being made of mist, an azure grotto tries vain enticement at his gaze; his head cannot be cooled and freshened by the fountain’s dewy haze. .......... Lord, send your blessing to him who, trailing through life’s heat, like some poor beggar past a garden, along a dry road drags his blistered feet. 172. ON THE NEVA Once again the river surges and the starlight seems to float, once again has love entrusted to the waves its secret boat. .......... Between the river and the starlight it slips, as if a dream befell in which this pair of spectres travelled far off across the river’s swell. .......... Are they slothful children idling at the dead of night? Are they blissful spirits of this earth-world taking flight? .......... Flowing hugely, like the sea, luxuriantly, richly swelling, Neva, conceal the modest boat, its secret never telling! 173. Midday breathes its hottest through my window opened wide into my peaceful bedroom. Everything is still and dark inside. .......... Sweet aromas live there, wandering in the dusky shade. In the sweet dusk of half-slumber rest yourself and fade. .......... A tireless fountain in the corner sings away the nights and days. Invisible dew it showers on the dark, enchanted haze. .......... In the glimmer of the half-light, by some secret passion seized, over an enamoured poet a reverie is lightly breezed. 174. Forget all cares, don’t reason deep! It’s mad to seek, a half-wit judges. You’ll heal your daily wounds with sleep. Take what tomorrow brings and bear no grudges. .......... Live life and live it stoically: live sadness, happiness and cares. Don’t wish, don’t pine regretfully. The day’s lived through. Send God your prayers! 175. Swelling, darkening waters turn leaden in inclement air. Through their severe lustre, rainbow hues stroke the evening’s crimson glare. .......... It scatters golden sparks, it sows fiery roses and the current bears them down. Above the dark-azure river the tempestuous, fiery evening tears off its crown. 176. Unsullied gods of light glow through azure nights. Glory, stars, glory to your splendid rays, glory to that which lasts without decay! Earth’s ephemeridae, the instant we are born we start to fail, watching, greeting as we pass you by: “Those about to die shout their immortal Hail!” 177. Prophetic sleep enfolds sad, half-clad trees. Perhaps every hundredth summer leaf, glistening with autumn gold, still trembles in the breeze. .......... I share the scene, moved at the sight when, through storm-clouds breaking, suddenly on the mottled sheens of exhausted, faded leaves there’s a lightning-splash of light. .......... How charming are fading powers! How delightful the sight when what once so lived and flowered is now so impotent and frail, smiling at its own last rites! 178. TO COUNTESS E. P. ROSTOPCHINA (IN REPLY TO HER LETTER) Just as under a snow drift of sloth, as if enchanted by winter, I slept the sleep of some departed soul, interred, yet still alive! .......... And right above me I sense, neither awake nor yet asleep, that it’s as if spring has been wafted in, as if something sang of spring. .......... There’s a familiar voice, a wondrous voice, sometimes a lyre’s note, at times a woman’s sigh, but I, unwakeable sluggard, suddenly could not reply. .......... I slept fettered by burdensome sloth, during an eight-month winter, as the just souls of the dead slumber in the fateful Stygian murk. .......... But this semi-sepulchral sleep, no matter how it stretched above me, itself, omnipotent sorcerer, hastened to my assistance. .......... It caught for me expressions of old friendship and into musical visions it embodied the familiar voice. .......... Now I see, as if through a haze, a magic garden, a magic house, and in the castle of the Unsociable fairy suddenly the pair of us appeared together! .......... Together! And her song resounded and from the secret porch chased the brash braggard and the loathsome flatterer. 179. TWO VOICES 1 Be manly, my friends, in the fight do not tire. The struggle’s unequal, the conflict is dire! Silent above you - the stars in the sky. Beneath you are graves. Just as silent they lie. .......... Olympus leaves gods not a thing to desire. Eternally carefree, from work they don’t tire. Troubles and labours belong to mankind. Man cannot know victory. Death’s all he finds. 2 Be manly, fight on, my brave friends. The battle is brutal, it seems without end. Stars revolve silently over your heads. Far below you - the mute, distant graves of the dead. ......... Let Olympus with envious eyes gaze down on this war of inflexible hearts. The fighter who falls beneath Destiny’s darts has torn from their grasp the victory-crown! 180. The desired structure, the monolith of world Slavdom will be raised only when, in full solemnity, Russia and Poland can be at peace, and these two will be reconciled not in Petersburg, not in Moscow, but in Kiev and in Tsargrad. 181. THE WAKE Regal Troy has fallen. Priam’s city has been destroyed and the Achaeans, preparing their homeward voyage, sat in their vessels along the shores of the Aegean, singing songs of praise, loudly glorifying all the gods. “Ring out, victorious voices! Ships, wing yourselves to the shores of our native land, on the path home, along a trouble-free way!” .......... In a long line too there sat a sadly pale family, the wives and maidens of fallen Troy, complaining and crying in the great and general grief, crying for themselves, and with the victorious, wild shouts their wild lament was fused. “Bitter captivity awaits us there, far off, in a foreign land. Farewell, native land! How the lot of the dead is to be envied!” .......... To make the sacrifice, Calchas, priest of offerings, got up, to sacrifice to the