Before him now another scene Had living beauties to display, Where Georgian valleys robed in green, Stretched outward like a carpet, lay. One of earth’s happy fertile nooks Where column-like the ruins stand; O’er stones of every hue, the brooks Run downward babbling through the land. The nightingales among the roses Sing tuneful love in accents fond To graceful mates that ne’er respond; The plane-tree’s spreading shade discloses The spot where ivy thick reposes; Here gorges where from burning day The timid deer lie hid away; And light, and life, and leaves that rustle, And voices’ hundred-sounding bustle, And plants whose thousand breaths compete, And fierce voluptuous noonday heat; And nights whose aromatic dew Distils a freshness ever new; And stars that are as bright as eyes, As glances of the Georgian maid. But nature in all charm arrayed To no new throb of life gave rise Within that outlaw’s sterile breast, Save for a hostile, cold unrest; And that which here he contemplated, He looked with scorn upon and hated.
--Transl. by A. C. Coolidge (unpublished).
DISPUTE
Once, before a tribal meeting Of the mountain throng, Kazbék-hill with Shat-the-mountain Wrangled loud and long. “Have a care, Kazbék, my brother,” Shat, the grey-haired, spoke; “Not for naught hath human cunning Bent thee to the yoke. Man will build his smoky cabins On thy hillside steep; Up thy valley’s deep recesses Ringing axe will creep; Iron pick will tear a pathway To thy stony heart, Delving yellow gold and copper For the human mart. Caravans, e’en now, are wending O’er thy stately heights, Where the mists and kingly eagles Wheeled alone their flights. Men are crafty; what though trying Proved the first ascent!-- Many-peopled, mark, and mighty Is the Orient.”
“Nay, I do not dread the Orient,” Kazbék, answering, jeers; “There mankind has spent in slumber Just nine hundred years. Look, where ’neath the shade of plane-trees Sleepy Georgians gape, Spilling o’er their broidered clothing Foam of luscious grape! See, ’mid wreaths of pipe-smoke, lying On his flowered divan, By the sparkling pearly fountain Dozeth Teheran! Lo! around Jerusalem’s city, Burned by God’s command Motionless, in voiceless stillness, Deathlike, lies the land.
“Farther off, to shade a stranger, Yellow Nilus laves, Glowing in the glare of noonday, Steps of royal graves. Bedouins forget their sorties For brocaded tents, While they count the stars and sing of Ancestral events. All that there the vision greeteth Sleeps in prized repose; No! the East will ne’er subdue me! Feeble are such foes!” “Do not boast thyself so early,” Answered ancient Shat; “In the North, look! ’mid the vapours, Something rises! What?”
Secretly the mighty Kazbék At this warning shook, And, in trouble, towards the nor’ward Cast a hurried look. As he looks in perturbation, Filled with anxious care, He beholds a strange commotion, Hears a tumult there. Lo! from Ural to the Danube, To the mighty stream, Tossing, sparkling in the sunlight, Moving regiments gleam; Glancing wave the white-plumed helmets Like the prairie grass, While, ’mid clouds of dust careering, Flashing Uhlans pass. Crowded close in serried phalanx War battalions come; In the van they bear the standards, Thunders loud the drum; Streaming forth like molten copper Batteries, rumbling, bound; Smoking just before the battle Torches flare around; Skilled in toils of stormy warfare, Heading the advance, See! a grey-haired general guides them, Threat’ning in his glance. Onwards move the mighty regiments With a torrent’s roar; Terrible, like gathering storm-clouds, East, due east, they pour.
Then, oppressed with dire forebodings, Filled with gloomy dreams, Strove Kazbék to count the foemen, Failed to count their streams. Glancing on his tribal mountains, Sadly gloomed the hill; Drew across his brows the mistcap, And for aye was still.
--From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.
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Alone I wander out along the road; The stony way gleams through the mist afar; The night is calm; the waste lists to its God; And star is speaking unto star.
In heaven wondrousness and grandeur reign; The earth sleeps in a glow of soft blue sky. Then why do I feel such distress, such pain? What have I to await? or what regret have I?
Already I await no more from life; And nothing in the past do I regret. I seek for freedom, and an end to strife; I only wish to sleep and to forget.
But not as in the tomb’s too chilly rest, My slumber through the ages I conceive With all Life’s vigour throbbing in my breast-- That with my breathing it should gently heave,--
That all the day and night, to soothe my ear, A tender voice to me of love should sing; And I must have, in green for ever near, A dark oak bending o’er me, murmuring.
--Transl. by A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard Monthly, 1895, and in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 14.
THE SAIL
A solitary sail is gleaming, While, through the haze of th’ azure, she, In chase of chance’s fortune seeming, Far from a cherished home may be.
The waves leap up,--the wind is blowing, The mast is bending low and creaks,-- Alas! from happiness not going, It is not happiness she seeks.
Beneath her prow blue floods are swelling, Above her glides the sunlit fleece, But still she prays for storms, rebelling-- As if in storms there can be peace.
--Transl. by Mrs. Heath, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 19.
THE PRAYER
In life’s hard, trying moments, With sorrow in my breast, I breathe a prayer most wonderful, Which ever brings me rest.
There is a power of blessedness In those sweet words enshrined, Thought cannot grasp their sacred charm That calms the anxious mind.
Doubt stays no more, the soul is free, Her burden rolls away, Her faith renewed, tears bring relief, When this sweet prayer I pray.
--Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 11.
THE BRANCH OF PALESTINE
Branch of Palestine, the story Of thy birth and beauty, say Of what hill and vale the glory Were thy leaves and blossoms gay?
Thee, by Jordan’s limpid fountains, Did the Eastern sunbeam bless? Thee, on Lebanon’s great mountains, Did the night-wind’s love caress?
Salem’s sons, with sorrow smitten, As they twined thy leaves with care-- Sang they songs, in old times written? Breathed they then a gentle prayer?
Is thy parent-palm yet living Where the summer sun beats down, Still to desert-travellers giving Shade beneath her broad-leafed crown?
Or, thy faded palm-tree sighing, Withered at thy parting, grieves, While the thirsty dust is lying Thickly on her yellow leaves?
Whose the reverent hand that bore thee From thy country to this place? Wept he often, bending o’er thee? Have those hot tears left their trace?
Was he of God’s host the flower, Shone his cheek with rapture bright, Worthy heaven, like thee, each hour In his God’s and comrades’ sight?
Branch from Salem, guard unsleeping Of the golden ikon fair, Watch before the holiest keeping, Thou art weighed with silent care!
Beauteous twilight, lamp-beams o’er thee; Full of peace and comfort, shine; Ark and cross repose before thee, Symbols of a love divine!
--Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 16.
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Remember’st thou the day when we-- Late was the hour--were forced to part? The night-gun boomed athwart the sea; In painful silence beat each heart; The lovely day found cloudy close; A heavy mist the landscape palled; And seemed it, when that shot arose, An echo from the ocean called.
Alone I wander by the flood; And when a gun booms in its might, I think in pain how we once stood Together on that parting night. And as the mournful echoes roll, Muffled, along the fluid walls, From out the caverns of my soul Death answeringly calls and calls.
--From W. R. Alger’s _The Poetry of the Orient_, 1865.
AT A BALL
How oft, surrounded by the motley crowd, Mid whirling dance, and din of music loud, I sink my senses in a dream,-- When phrased convention, polished fiction, fly And all the men and women pass me by,-- Like masks their faces seem.
When my cold hands are met with colder still, And callous city beauties touch me chill, Bold but effete, with hollow cheer, Then, to appearance wrapped in light and glare, I cherish in my heart a fancy fair,-- Echoes a bygone year.
Forsaking all around, in heart and mind I fly--a free, free bird--to things behind, And see myself a child once more, In places old and dear. The house o’erhead,-- The garden path I see,--the ruined shed,-- The pond well-weeded o’er:
And see across the pond the village lie, From clustered roof the smoke is rising high, The mists from meadows far away! I enter a dark alley: evening red Blinks through the shrubs, and underneath my tread The dead leaves rustling stray.
Then a strange longing holds me,--yearning sore For love,--my fancy’s love and nothing more:-- She was a dream and yet my love! Her sky-blue eyes could flash with silver flame, Her rosy smile with kindling sweetness came, Like sunrise through the grove.
Thus, potent master of my fairyland, Alone I pass my hours, and understand The spell of those sweet days to save, Unharmed, unstained by passion or by doubt, Like some fair flowery islet, lying out Where leaps the wild sea wave.
But suddenly a jar renews my sense,-- The happy, happy dream is frighted hence, That gentle, uninvited guest. And wild I long my steel-cold lines to fling Upon the startled crowd, to smite and sting, With anger from my breast.
--Transl. by Mrs. Charlotte Sidgwick, in Free Russia, vol. xi., No. 2.
DREAM
’Neath midday heat, in Dagestána’s Vale, With leaden ball in breast I lifeless lay; From a deep wound smoke rose upon the gale, And drop by drop my life-blood ebbed away.
Alone I lay upon the sandy slopes; The craggy cliffs around me crowded steep; The sunlight burned upon their yellow tops, And burned on me who slept no mortal sleep.
A dream I dreamed, and saw in sparkling bowers An evening feast in my home,--far away,-- Where young and lovely women, crowned with flowers, Conversed of me in accents light and gay.
But, in their happy talk not joining, one Sat far apart, and plunged in thought she seemed; And oh! the mystery knows God alone,-- This was the dream her young soul sadly dreamed.
She saw in vision Dagestána’s Vale, Where on the slope a well-known body lay; From the black wound smoke rose upon the gale, And in cold streams the life-blood ebbed away.
--From John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.
Aleksyéy Vasílevich Koltsóv. (1808-1842.)
Koltsóv was the son of a burgher of Vorónezh who dealt in hides and tallow. He received very little training in his coarse and ignorant family, and at ten years of age went to a school just long enough to learn to read and write. After that his father put him to work at his business, but the boy found enough time to read some Russian fairy tales and a few novels. Dmítriev’s poems, which fell into his hands, gave him a taste for poetry, and a “Russian Prosody,” given him by a local book-dealer, for the first time taught him the harmony of verse and its technical structure. He at once began to compose poems in imitation of such as he could procure, while a seminarist whose acquaintance he cultivated corrected and guided his first attempts. In 1831 Koltsóv went to Moscow where he was introduced to the critic Byelínski, who at once recognised the unusual talent of the untutored bard. After a second visit, in 1836, the two became staunch friends, and under Byelínski’s influence Koltsóv produced the best of his poems. He soon returned to the sordid surroundings of his native place, and died shortly after of consumption. The striking picturesqueness of his verse, which is based on the inimitable, untranslatable diction of the peasant, has given rise to two diametrically opposed views: according to the one, he is the popular bard _par excellence_; according to the other, he has only made artistic use of the peasant’s language for productions that are eminently refined and, therefore, removed from the understanding of the masses.
In English translation have appeared: _Season of Love_, _A Prayer_, _Two Lives_, _First Love_, in _A Russian Poet_, by W. R. S. Ralston, in Fortnightly Review, vol. vi., 1866; _The Abundant Harvest_, _The Mower_, _The Peasant Musing_, in _Russian Idylls_, by W. R. S. Ralston, in Contemporary Review, vol. xxiii., 1874; _The Ploughman’s Song_, _The Peasant’s Misgivings_, _The Orphan_, _Love’s Invitation_, in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_, 1887; _The Forest_, _Betrayed by a Bride_, by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 16, and _A Winter Wooing_, _The Mower_, by Mrs. Rosa Newmarch, _ib._, No. 30.
FIRST LOVE
Her whom I loved in early years So well, so tenderly,--who filled With a first passion’s hopes and fears A heart which time has not yet stilled,-- Can I forget her? Day by day I strive Her well-loved image from my mind to drive; To find new dreams my old dreams to efface, And let another love my early love replace. But all in vain. I strive and strive, and yet Whate’er I do I never can forget. When in the silent hours of night I sleep, She comes in dreams; once more I see her stand Beside my couch; once more her accents steep My suffering soul in bliss; once more her hand In mine so gently, mournfully, she lays, While her dark eyes on mine in sadness gaze. Speed, kindly Time, my thoughts from her to sever, Or set me free with her to live for ever.
--Transl. by W. R. S. Ralston, in Fortnightly Review, 1866 (vol. vi.).
THE ABUNDANT HARVEST