However, reader, we may wonder . ..
The youthful lover's voice is stilled,
His dreams and songs all rent asunder;
And he, alas, by friend lies killed!
Not far from where the youth once flourished
There lies a spot the poet cherished:
Two pine trees grow there, roots entwined;
Beneath them quiet streamlets wind,
Meand'ring from the nearby valley.
And there the ploughman rests at will
And women reapers come to fill
Their pitchers in the stream and dally;
There too, within a shaded nook,
A simple stone adjoins the brook.
41
Sometimes a shepherd sits there waiting
(Till on the fields, spring rains have passed)
And sings of Volga fishers, plaiting
His simple, coloured shoes of bast;
Or some young girl from town who's spending
Her summer in the country mending
When headlong and alone on horse
She races down the meadow course,
Will draw her leather reins up tightly
To halt just there her panting steed;
And lifting up her veil, she'll read
The plain inscription, skimming lightly;
And as she reads, a tear will rise
And softly dim her gentle eyes.
42
And at a walk she'll ride, dejected,
Into the open field to gaze,
Her soul, despite herself, infected
By Lensky's brief, ill-fated days.
She'll wonder too: 'Did Olga languish?
Her heart consumed with lasting anguish?
Or did the time of tears soon pass?
And where's her sister now, poor lass?
And where that gloomy, strange betrayer,
The modish beauty's modish foe,
That recluse from the world we know
The youthful poet's friend and slayer?'
In time, I promise, I'll not fail
To tell you all in full detail.
43
But not today. Although I cherish
My hero and of course I vow
To see how he may wane or flourish,
I'm not quite in the mood just now.
The years to solemn prose incline me;
The years chase playful rhyme behind me,
And Ialas, I must confess
Pursue her now a good deal less.
My pen has lost its disposition
To mar the fleeting page with verse;
For other, colder dreams I nurse,
And sterner cares now seek admission;
And mid the hum and hush of life,
They haunt my soul with dreams of strife.
44
I've learned the voice of new desires
And come to know a new regret;
The first within me light no fires,
And I lament old sorrows yet.
O dreams! Where has your sweetness vanished?
And where has youth (glib rhyme) been banished?
Can it be true, its bloom has passed,
Has withered, withered now at last?
Can it be true, my heyday's ended
All elegiac play aside That now indeed my spring has died
(As I in jest so oft pretended)?
And is there no return of youth?
Shall I be thirty soon, in truth?
45
And so, life's afternoon has started,
As I must now admit, I see.
But let us then as friends be parted,
My sparkling youth, before you flee!
For pain and grief as well as pleasures,
For storms and feasts and worldly noise,
For all your gifts and all your joys;
My thanks to you. With you I've tasted,
Amid the tumult and the still,
Life's essence . . . and enjoyed my fill.
Enough! Clear-souled and far from wasted,
I start upon an untrod way
To take my rest from yesterday.
46
But one glance back. Farewell, you bowers,
Sweet wilderness in which I spent
Impassioned days and idle hours,
And filled my soul with dreams, content.
And you, my youthful inspiration,
Come stir the bleak imagination,
Enrich the slumbering heart's dull load,
More often visit my abode;
Let not the poet's soul grow bitter
Or harden and congeal alone,
To turn at last to lifeless stone
Amid this world's deceptive glitter,
This swirling swamp in which we lie
And wallow, friends, both you and I!
Chapter 7
Moscow! Russia's favourite daughter!
Where is your equal to be found!
Dmitriev
Can one not love our native Moscow?
Baratynsky
'Speak ill of Moscow!
So this is what it means to see the world!
Where is it better, then?'
'Where we are not.'
Griboedov
1
Spring rays at last begin to muster
And chase from nearby hills the snow,
Whose turbid streams flow down and cluster
To inundate the fields below.
And drowsy nature, smiling lightly,
Now greets the dawning season brightly.
The heavens sparkle now with blue;
The still transparent woods renew
Their downy green and start to thicken.
The bee flies out from waxen cell
To claim its meed from field and dell.
The vales grow dry and colours quicken;
The cattle low; and by the moon
The nightingale pours forth its tune.
2
How sad I find your apparition,
O spring! ... #62038; time of love's unrest!
What sombre echoes of ambition
Then stir my blood and fill my breast!
What tender and oppressive yearning
Possesses me on spring's returning,
When in some quiet rural place
I feel her breath upon my face!
Or am I now inured to gladness;
And all that quickens and excites,
That sparkles, triumphs, and delights
Casts only spleen and languid sadness
On one whose heart has long been dead,
For whom but darkness lies ahead?
3
Or saddened by the re-emergence
Of leaves that perished in the fall,
We heed the rustling wood's resurgence,
As bitter losses we recall;
Or do we mark with lamentation
How nature's lively renovation
Compares with our own fading youth,
For which no spring will come, in truth?
Perhaps in thought we reassemble,
Within a dream to which we cling,
Some other and more ancient spring,
With visions of some distant place,
A magic night, the moon's embrace. . . .
4
Now is the time, you hibernators,
You epicures and sages, you;
You fortunate procrastinators,
You fledglings from our Lyvshin's crew,*
You rustic Priams from the cities,
And you, my sentimental pretties
Spring calls you to your country seat;
It's time for flowers, labours, heat,
Those heady walks for which you're thirsting,
And soft seductive nights as well.
Into the fields, my friends, pell-mell!
Load up your carriages to bursting,
Bring out your own or rent a horse,
And far from town now set your course!
5
You too, indulgent reader, hurry
In your imported coach, I pray,
To leave the city with its flurry,
Where you spent wintertime in play;
And with my wilful Muse let's hustle
To where the leafy woodlands rustle
A nameless river's placid scene,
The country place where my Eugene,
That idle and reclusive schemer,
But recently this winter stayed,
Not far from our unhappy maid,
Young Tanya, my enchanted dreamer;
But where he now no longer reigns . . .
Where only his sad trace remains.
6
Where hills half circle round a valley,
Let's trace a winding brooklet's flow
Through greening fields, and watch it dally
Beside a spot where lindens grow.
And there the nightingale, spring's lover,
Sings out till dawn; a crimson cover
Of briar blooms, and freshets sound.
There too a tombstone can be found
Beneath two pine trees, old for ages.
Its legend lets the stranger know:
'Vladimir Lensky lies below.
He died too soon ... his death courageous,
At such an age, in such a year.
Repose in peace, young poet, here!'
7
There was a time when breezes playing
Among the pines would gently turn
A secret wreath that hung there swaying
Upon a bough above that urn;
And sometimes in the evening hours
Two maidens used to come with flowers,
And by the moonlit grave they kept
Their vigil and, embracing, wept.
But now the monument stands dreary
And quite forgot. Its pathway now
All weeds. No wreath is on the bough;
Alone the shepherd, grey and weary,
Beneath it sings as in the past
and plaits his simple shoes of bast.
(8-9) 10
My poor, poor Lensky! Yes, she mourned him;
Although her tears were all too brief!
Alas! His fiance has scorned him
And proved unfaithful to her grief.
Another captured her affection,
Another with his love's perfection
Has lulled her wretchedness to sleep:
A lancer has enthralled her deep,
A lancer whom she loves with passion;
And at the altar by his side,
She stands beneath the crown a bride,
Her head bent down in modest fashion,
Her lowered eyes aflame the while,
And on her lips a slender smile.
11
Poor Lensky! In his place of resting,
In deaf eternity's grim shade,
Did he, sad bard, awake protesting
The fateful news, he'd been betrayed?
Or lulled by Lethe, has he slumbered,
His blissful spirit unencumbered
By feelings and perturbed no more,
His world a closed and silent door?
Just so! The tomb that lies before us
Holds but oblivion in the end.
The voice of lover, foe, and friend
Falls silent fast. Alone the chorus
Of angry heirs in hot debate
Contests obscenely our estate.
12
Soon Olga's happy voice and beauty
No longer cheered the family group.
A captive of his lot and duty,
Her lancer had to join his troop.
Dame Larin's eyes began to water
As she embraced her younger daughter
And, scarce alive, cried out goodbye.
But Tanya found she couldn't cry;
A deathly pallor merely covered
Her stricken face. When all came out
Onto the porch and fussed about
While taking leave, Tatyana hovered
Beside the couple's coach below,
Then sadly saw the lovers go.
13
And long she watched the road they'd taken,
As through a mist of stifled tears. . . .
Now Tanya is alone, forsaken!
Companion of so many years,
The darling sister whom she'd nourished,
The bosom friend she'd always cherished
Now carried off by fate, a bride,
Forever parted from her side.
She roams in aimless desolation,
Now gazes at the vacant park. ...
But all seems joyless, bleak and dark;
There's nothing offers consolation
Or brings her smothered tears relief;
Her heart is rent in two by grief.
14
And in the solitude her passion
Burns even stronger than before,
Her heart speaks out in urgent fashion
Of faraway Eugene the more.
She'll never see him . . . and be grateful,
She finds a brother's slayer hateful
And loathes the awful thing he's done.
The poet's gone . . . and hardly one
Remembers him; his bride's devotion
Has flown to someone else instead;
His very memory now has fled
Like smoke across an azure ocean.
Two hearts, perhaps, remain forlorn
And mourn him yet. . . . But wherefore mourn?
15
'Twas evening and the heavens darkled.
A beetle hummed. The peasant choirs
Were bound for home. Still waters sparkled.
Across the river, smoky fires
Of fishermen were dimly gleaming.
Tatyana walked, alone and dreaming,
Beneath the moonbeams' silver light
And climbed a gentle hill by night.
She walked and walked . .. till with a shiver
She spied a distant hamlet's glow,
A manor house and grove below,
A garden by the glinting river.
And as she gazed upon that place
Her pounding heart began to race.
16