Chapter II: Part 2

In the following spirited little piece Pushkin has commemorated an incident which occurred in the reign of Peter the Great, and which is probably sufficiently familiar to the readers of Russian history, to render unnecessary a more than passing allusion to the circumstance. Among the thousand traits of grandeur recorded of the Hero-Tsar, there are few more affecting and sublime than that commemorated in the anecdote of his indulgence to Menstchikoff, who had betrayed his master's confidence, and committed various acts of peculation and oppression. Peter pardoned his unfaithful but repentant minister, and celebrated this act of generous clemency by a magnificent banquet, at which he exhibited to his admiral every testimony of renewed confidence and affection. This banquet is the subject of the following lines, in which all the allusions are probably familiar to our readers, not excepting the mention made of the imposing ceremony spoken of in the third stanza; that is to say, the grand review of the infant Russian fleet, at which the Emperor assisted in person, and in the rank of Vice-Admiral. The whole squadron--recently created by the genius and wisdom of the Prince, and freshly covered with naval glory, till then unknown in Russia--was anchored in the Neva, and along its line slowly passed, under a general salute of cannon, and accompanied by the acclamations of the crews of the men-of-war, the old pleasure-boat, the "baubling shallop," which had first suggested to Peter's mind the idea and the possibility of giving Russia a navy. This small vessel, still most religiously preserved in the fortress, and affectionately called by the Russians the "Grandfather" of their navy, had been constructed for the amusement of the Tsar Alexei, by Brandt, a Dutch shipbuilder, who had visited Moscow during the reign of that prince--the father of the great regenerator of Russia. The vessel, a small sloop rigged in the Dutch manner, had remained neglected on the lake of Pereslav-Zalevskii (in the province of Vladimir) till it was remarked by Peter, who, from seeing it, not only conceived the idea of creating a navy, but made it the means of acquiring for himself the first rudiments of practical seamanship. As _a ship_ in the Russian language is a _masculine_ substantive, the familiar title given to this immortal little vessel is "grandfather," or "grandsire," a word of which we have thought it necessary to transpose the gender, in obedience to that poetical and striking idiom in our tongue, by which a ship always rigorously appertains to the gentler and lovelier sex. In our version, therefore, the "grandsire" becomes--we trust without any loss of dignity or interest--the "grandame" of the Russian navy:--

THE FEAST OF PETER THE FIRST.

O'er the Neva gaily dancing,
Flag and pennant flutter fair;
From the boats, in line advancing,
Oars-men's chorus fills the air.
Loud and joyous guests assembling,
Throng the palace of the Tsar;
And to cannon-crash is trembling
All the Neva from afar.

Wherefore feasts our Tsar of Wonders?
Why is Petersburg so gay?
Why those shouts and cannon-thunders,
And the fleet in war array?
Is new glory dawning o'er ye,
Russia's Eagle, Russia's Sword?
Has the stern Swede fled before ye?
Has the foe for peace implored?

Is it Brandt's slight boat, appearing
On the shore that _was_ the Swede's?
Through our young fleet proudly steering
Like a _grandame_ she proceeds.
They, her giant-brood, seem kneeling
'Fore their grandame--black and grim;
And to Science' name are pealing
Cannon-crash and choral hymn.

Is't Poltava, red and glorious,
That he feasts--the Lord of War?
When his Empire's life, victorious,
Saved from Charles the Russian Tsar?
Greet they Catharine's saint, those thunders?
Hath she given a Prince to life?
Of our Giant-Tsar of Wonders,
She, the raven-tressed wife?

No! a Subject's crime remitting,
To the guilty, guilt he sinks;
By a Subject's side he's sitting,
From a Subject's cup he drinks:
And his brow he kisses, smiling,
Gay of heart, and bright of eye;
And he feasts a Reconciling
Like some mighty Victory.

Hence those shouts of joy and wonder;
Hence is Petersburg so gay;
Hence the songs and cannon-thunder,
And the fleet in war array;
Hence the guests in joy assembling;
Hence the full cup of the Tsar;
Hence, with cannon-crash, is trembling
All the Neva from afar.

* * * * *

The following lines (which are not without a kind of fantastic prettiness of their own) do not seen to need any remark or explanation, unless it be the circumstance of the poet's qualifying the sky of St Petersburg with the epithet of _pale-green_. It may be observed that this peculiar tint (exactly enough expressed by the adjective) has struck almost all the strangers who have visited the northern capital, and has been repeatedly noticed by travellers; as, for instance, Kohl, Custine, &c. &c. Our readers will find the singular colour of the St Petersburg atmosphere (particularly observable in the winter, or at night) very well described in Sir George Lefevre's amusing "Notes of a Travelling Physician." This greenish tint is as peculiar to the banks of the Neva, as is the reddish-black to the neighbourhood of Birmingham or the Potteries; or the yellowish-brown (in November--"let rude ears be absent!") to the environs of the Thames:--

"TOWN OF STARVING, TOWN OF SPLENDOUR!"

Town of starving, town of splendour,
Dulness, pride, and slavery;
Skyey vault of pale-green tender,
Cold, and granite, and _ennui_!
With a pang, I say adieu t'ye
With a pang, though slight--for there
Trips the foot of _one_ young beauty,
Waves _one_ tress of golden hair.

* * * * *

In the short and rapid sketch of Pushkin's life and writings which will be found prefixed to this selection, we made particular mention of the strong impression produced upon the Russian public by the appearance of the noble lines addressed to the _Sea_. We beg to subjoin a translation of this short but vigorous poem, which has become classical in the author's country; an honour it certainly deserves, not only from the simple grace and energy of the language, but from the weight, dignity, and verity of the thoughts. The lines were written by the poet on his quitting the shores of the Caspian, where he had so long dwelt in solitude, gathering inspiration from the sublime Nature by which he was surrounded; and the poem cannot but be considered as a worthy outpouring of the feelings which a long communion with that Nature was so capable of communicating to a mind like that of Pushkin. Of the two great men whose recent death was naturally recalled to the poet's recollection by the view of the ocean, the name of one--Napoleon--is specifically mentioned; that of the other is--Byron. Seldom, in the prosecution of his difficult but not ungrateful task, has the translator felt the imperfection of his art, or the arduous nature of its object, more keenly than when attempting to give something like an adequate version of the eleventh and twelfth stanzas of this majestic composition. In order to give some idea of the fidelity of his imitation, we will subjoin the literal English of these eight lines:--

He vanish'd, wept by liberty,
Leaving to the world his crown.
Roar, swell with storm-weather;
He was, O sea, thy bard!
Thine image was stamp'd upon him,
He was created in thy spirit;
Like thee, mighty, deep, and gloomy,
Like thee, untameable!

TO THE SEA.

Farewell, free sky, and thou, O Ocean!
For the last time, before my sight
Roll thy blue waves in ceaseless motion,
And shine with a triumphant light!

Like friend's farewell in parting hour,
And mournful as his whisper'd word,
Thy solemn roar--that voice of power--
Now for the last time I have heard.

Bound of my spirit's aspiration!
How often on thy shore, O Sea!
I've roved in gloomy meditation,
Tired with my mighty ministry!

Thine echoes--oh, how I have loved them!
Dread sounds--the voices of the Deep!
Thy waves--or rock'd in sunset sleep,
Or when the tempest-blast had moved them!

The fisher's peaceful sail may glide--
If such thy will--in safety gleaming,
Mid thy dark surges rolling wide;
But thou awak'st in sportful seeming--
And navies perish in thy tide!

How oft was mock'd my wild endeavour
To leave the dull unmoving strand,
To hail thee, Sea; to leave thee never,
And o'er thy foam to guide for ever
My course, with free poetic hand.

Thou calledst ... but a chain was round me;
In vain my soul its fetters tore;
A mighty passion-spell had bound me,
And I remain'd upon thy shore.

Wherever o'er thy billows lonely
I might direct my careless prow,
Amid thy waste _one_ object only
Would strike with awe my spirit now;

One rock ... the sepulchre of glory ...
There sleep the echoes that are gone,
The echoes of a mighty story;
There pined and died Napoleon.

There pined he, lone and broken-hearted.
And after, like a storm-blast, then
_Another_ Mighty One departed,
Another Ruler among Men.

He vanish'd from among us--leaving
His laurels, Freedom, unto thee!
Roar, Ocean; swell-with tempest-grieving;
He was thy chosen bard, O sea!

Thine echoes in his voice resounded
Thy gloom upon his brow was shed,
Like thee, his soul was deep, unbounded,
Like thee 'twas mighty, dark, and dread.

The earth is empty now, * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *

Farewell, then, Sea! Before me gleaming
Oft wilt thou float in sunny pride,
And often shall I hear in dreaming
Thy resonance, at evening-tide.

And I shall bear, to inland meadows
To the still woods, and silent caves,
Thy rocks, thy cliffs, thy lights, thy shadows,
And all the language of the waves.

* * * * *

The following lines we think elegantly and prettily expressed.

ECHO.

To roar of beast in wild-wood still,
To thunder-roll, to bugle-trill,
To maiden singing on the hill,
To every sound
Thy voice, responsive, straight doth fill
The air around.

Thou hearkenest when the storm-blasts blow,
To thunder peal, to billow's flow,
And shepherd's call from hamlet low,
Replying straight;
But _thee_ nought answers ... Even so,
Poet, thy fate!

* * * * *

There are few things more curious than to observe how universally the same legends are to be found in the popular traditions of very distant ages and nations, under circumstances which render it extremely difficult for the most acute investigator to trace how, when, and where they were communicated, or even to give any plausible account of the origin of the legend itself. So difficult indeed is this task, that we are almost driven to account for so singular a phenomenon, by attributing to the human mind an exceedingly small endowment of originality; and by supposing that, however the details of these ancient traditions may have been modified and adapted to suit the peculiar nature, the scenery of each particular country, or the manners, customs, and character of its inhabitants--the fundamental idea, and the leading incident, remaining the same under the most dissimilar conditions of time and place, must have a common and a single origin. This doctrine, if carried to its legitimate consequences, would lead us to consider the number of the original legends common to all times and many races, as singularly limited; and that a very short list indeed might be made to embrace the _root-stories_--the _uhrsagen_, as a German might call them. And really when we reflect that many of the most threadbare jests which figure in the recondite tomes of Mr Joseph Miller are to be found, crystallized in attic salt, in the pages of Hierocles, and represented as forming part of the "Hundred merye Talis and Jeastis" which delectated the citizens of ancient Greece; when we reflect, we repeat, that the same buffooneries, still retailed by after-dinner cits in the Sunday shades of Clapham or Camden-Town, may have raised the easy laugh of the merry Greek beneath the portico and in the Agora; it makes us entertain a very humble idea respecting the amount of creative power given to man, even for the production of so small a matter as a pleasantry, not to speak of pleasantries so very small as some of these mysterious and time-honoured jokes. If we remember, still further, that the pedigree of these trifling insects of the brain, these children of the quip, does not stop even in the venerable pages of Hierocles--that Greek "Joe"--but loses itself, like a Welsh genealogy in the darkest gloom of antiquity, we ought not to be surprised that ancient legends, being often shattered fragments and dim shadowings-forth of mystic and hierophantic philosophy, should be found, with many of their principal features unaltered, in the popular traditions of different ages and countries.

The tale embodied in the "Lay of Oleg the Wise," is identical in all its essentials with the legend still extant upon the tomb of an ancient Kentish family, in the church of (we believe) Minster, in the Isle of Sheppey. The inimitable Ingoldsby has made the adventure the subject of one of his charming "Legends," and has shown how the Knight came by his death in consequence of wounding his foot in the act of contemptuously kicking the fatal horse's skull, thus accomplishing the prophecy many years after the death of the faithful steed. The reader will perceive, that in the Russian form of the legend the hero dies by the bite of a serpent, and not by the less imposing consequences of mortification in the toe; but the identity of the leading idea in the two versions of the old tale, is too striking not to be remarked. It is only necessary to observe that Oleg is still one of the popular heroes of Russian legendary lore, and that the feast, to which allusion is made at the end of the poem, is the funeral banquet customary among the ancient Slavons at the burial of their heroes; and resembling the funeral games of the heroic age in Greece. The Slavonians, however, had the habit, on such occasions, of sacrificing a horse over the tumulus or barrow of the departed brave. The _Perun_ mentioned in the stanzas was the War-God of this ancient people.

THE LAY OF THE WISE OLEG.

Wise Oleg to the war he hath bouned him again,
The Khozars have awaken'd his ire;
For rapine and raid, hamlet, city, and plain
Are devoted to falchion and fire.
In mail of Byzance, girt with many a good spear,
The Prince pricks along on his faithful destrere.

From the darksome fir-forest, to meet that array,
Forth paces a gray-haired magician:
To none but Perun did that sorcerer pray,
Fulfilling the prophet's dread mission:
His life he had wasted in penance and pain:--
And beside that enchanter Oleg drew his rein.

"Now rede me, enchanter, beloved of Perun,
The good and the ill that's before me;
Shall I soon give my neighbour-foes triumph, and soon
Shall the earth of the grave be piled o'er me?
Unfold all the truth; fear me not; and for meed,
Choose among them--I give thee my best battle-steed."

"O, enchanters they care not for prince or for peer,
And gifts are but needlessly given;
The wise tongue ne'er stumbleth for falsehood or fear,
'Tis the friend of the councils of Heaven!
The years of the future are clouded and dark,
Yet on thy fair forehead thy fate I can mark:

"Remember now firmly the words of my tongue;
For the chief finds a rapture in glory:
On the gate of Byzantium thy buckler is hung,
Thy name shall be deathless in story;
Wild waves and broad kingdoms thy sceptre obey,
And the foe sees with envy so boundless a sway:

"And the blue sea, uplifting its treacherous wave,
In its wrath--in the hurricane-hour--
And the knife of the coward, the sword of the brave,
To slay thee shall never have power:
Within thy strong harness no wound shalt thou know,
For a guardian unseen shall defend thee below.

"Thy steed fears not labour, nor danger, nor pain,
His lord's lightest accent he heareth,
Now still, though the arrows fall round him like rain,
Now o'er the red field he careereth;
He fears not the winter, he fears not to bleed--
Yet thy death-wound shall come from thy good battle-steed!"

Oleg smiled a moment, but yet on his brow,
And lip, thought and sorrow were blended:
In silence he bent on his saddle, and slow
The Prince from his courser descended;
And as though from a friend he were parting with pain,
He strokes his broad neck and his dark flowing mane.

"Farewell then, my comrade, fleet, faithful, and bold!
We must part--such is Destiny's power:
Now rest thee--I swear, in thy stirrup of gold
No foot shall e'er rest, from this hour.
Farewell! we've been comrades for many a long year--
My squires, now I pray ye, come take my destrere.

"The softest of carpets his horse-cloth shall be:
And lead him away to the meadow;
On the choicest of corn he shall feed daintilie,
He shall drink of the well in the shadow."
Then straightway departed the squires with the steed,
And to valiant Oleg a fresh courser they lead.

Oleg and his comrades are feasting, I trow;
The mead-cups are merrily clashing:
Their locks are as white as the dawn-lighted snow
On the peak of the mountain-top flashing:
They talk of old times, of the days of their pride,
And the fights where together they struck side by side.

"But where," quoth Oleg, "is my good battle-horse?
My mettlesome charger--how fares he?
Is he playful as ever, as fleet in the course;
His age and his freedom how bears he?"
They answer and say: on the hill by the stream
He has long slept the slumber that knows not a dream.

Oleg then grew thoughtful, and bent down his brow:
"O man, what can magic avail thee!
A false lying dotard, Enchanter, art thou:
Our rage and contempt should assail thee.
My horse might have borne me till now, but for thee
Then the bones of his charger Oleg went to see.

Oleg he rode forth with his spearmen beside;
At his bridle Prince Igor he hurried:
And they see on a hillock by Dniepr's swift tide
Where the steed's noble bones lie unburied:
They are wash'd by the rain, the dust o'er them is cast,
And above them the feather-grass waves in the blast.

Then the Prince set his foot on the courser's white skull;
Saying: "Sleep, my old friend, in thy glory!
Thy lord hath outlived thee, his days are nigh full:
At his funeral feast, red and gory,
'Tis not thou 'neath the axe that shall redden the sod,
That my dust may be pleasured to quaff thy brave blood.

"And am I to find my destruction in _this_?
My death in a skeleton seeking?"
From the skull of the courser a snake, with a hiss,
Crept forth, as the hero was speaking:
Round his legs, like a ribbon, it twined its black ring;
And the Prince shriek'd aloud as he felt the keen sting.

The mead-cups are foaming, they circle around;
At Oleg's mighty Death-Feast they're ringing;
Prince Igor and Olga they sit on the mound;
The war-men the death-song are singing:
And they talk of old times, of the days of their pride,
And the fights where together they struck side by side.

* * * * *

We know not whether our readers will be attracted or repelled by the somewhat exaggerated tone of thought, and the strangeness and novelty of the metre, in the following little piece. The gloom of the despondency expressed in the lines is certainly Byronian--and haply "something more." It is to be hoped, however, that they may find favour in the eyes of the English reader--always so "novitatis avidus,"--if only on the score of the singularity of the versification:--

REMEMBRANCE.

When for the sons of men is stilled the day's turmoil,
And on the dumb streets of the city
With half-transparent shade sinks Night, the friend of Toil--
And Sleep--calm as the tear of Pity;
Oh, then, how drag they on, how silent, and how slow,
The lonely vigil-hours tormenting;
How sear they then my soul, those serpent fangs of woe,
Fangs of heart-serpents unrelenting!
Then burn my dreams: in care my soul is drown'd and dead,
Black, heavy thoughts come thronging o'er me;
Remembrance then unfolds, with finger slow and dread,
Her long and doomful scroll before me.
Then reading those dark lines, with shame, remorse, and fear,
I curse and tremble as I trace them,
Though bitter be my cry, though bitter be my tear,
Those lines--I never shall efface them:

* * * * *

There is another little composition in the same key.

"I HAVE OUTLIVED THE HOPES THAT CHARM'D ME."

I have outlived the hopes that charm'd me,
The dreams that once my heart could bless!
'Gainst coming agonies I've arm'd me,
Fruits of the spirit's loneliness.

My rosy wreath is rent and faded
By cruel Fate's sirocco-breath!
Lonely I live, and sad, and jaded,
And wait, and wait--to welcome death!

Thus, in the chilly tempest shivering,
When Winter sings his song of grief,
Lone on the bough, and feebly quivering,
Trembles the last belated leaf.

* * * * *

The following is a somewhat new version of the famous "E pur si muove" of Galileo.

MOTION.

"There is," once said the bearded sage, "no motion!"
The other straight 'gan move before his eyes:
The contrary no stronglier could he prove.
All praised the answerer's ingenious notion.
Now, Sirs; this story doth to me recall
A new example of the fact surprising:
We see each day the sun before us rising,
Yet right _was_ Galileo, after all!

In the spirited lines addressed to "The Slanderers of Russia," Pushkin has recorded a sufficiently conclusive reply to the hackneyed calumnies against his country, repeated with such a nauseating uniformity, and through so long a period of time, in wretched verse, or more wretched prose, in the leading articles of obscure provincial newspapers, and on the scaffolding of obscure provincial hustings. Whatever may be the merits or demerits, in a moral point of view, of the part played by Russia in the events alluded to by the poet, events which form the stock subject of the scribblings and spoutings we speak of, these tiresome tirades do not come with a very good grace from either England or France. There is a very excellent and venerable proverb which expresses the imprudence of the practice of throwing stones, when indulged in by the inhabitant of an abode composed of a vitreous substance, not to mention a still more greybearded and not less wise saw, specifying, in terms rather forcible than dignified, the impolicy of the pot alluding in an opprobrious manner to the blackness which characterizes the sitting part of its fellow-utensil, the kettle; and the "wisdom of ages" might, in the present instance, be very reasonably adduced to moderate the excessive moral susceptibilities of the aforesaid writers and declaimers, and to restrain the feeble flood of words--the dirty torrent of shallow declamation, so incessantly poured forth against Russia on the subject of Poland. "Judge not, that ye be not judged!" is an excellent precept for the guidance of nations as well as of individuals; and, we think, a Russian, wearied by the tiresome repetition of the same accusations against his native country, can hardly be blamed for asking, in language even more energetic than that here employed by Pushkin, whether England or France have hands so clean, or a conscience so clear, as to justify them in their incessant and insolent attempt to sit in judgment upon their European sister. We certainly think that the recollection of the Affghan war, the bombardment of Copenhagen, of the splendid exploits of Whig policy and Whig non-intervention in Spain, might make England a little more modest, and a little less inclined to declaim against the wickedness of other nations--and as to France, her whole history, from the Republic to the present day, is nothing but a succession of lessons which might teach _la grande nation_ to abstain from exhibiting herself in the character of a moral instructress to the world.

TO THE SLANDERERS OF RUSSIA.

Why rave ye, babblers, so--ye lords of popular wonder?
Why such anathemas 'gainst Russia do ye thunder?
What moves your idle rage? Is't Poland's fallen pride?
'Tis but Slavonic kin among themselves contending,
An ancient household strife, oft judged but still unending,
A question which, be sure, _ye_ never can decide.
For ages past have still contended
These races, though so near allied:
And oft 'neath Victory's storm has bended
Now Poland's, and now Russia's side.
Which shall stand fast in such commotion,
The haughty Liakh, or faithful Russ?
And shall Slavonic streams meet in a Russian ocean--
Or _that_ dry up? This is the point for us.

Peace, peace! your eyes are all unable
To read our history's bloody table;
Strange in your sight and dark must be
Our springs of household enmity!
To you the Kreml and Praga's tower
Are voiceless all--you mark the fate
And daring of the battle-hour--
And understand us not, but hate ...

What stirs ye? Is it that this nation
On Moscow's flaming wall, blood-slaked and ruin-quench'd,
Spurn'd back the insolent dictation
Of Him before whose nod ye blench'd?
Is it that into dust we shatter'd
The Dagon that weigh'd down all earth so wearily?
And our best blood so freely scatter'd
To buy for Europe peace and liberty?

Ye're bold of tongue--but hark, would ye in _deed_ but try it
Or is the hero, now reclined in laurell'd quiet,
Too weak to fix once more Izmail's red bayonet?
Or hath the Russian Tsar ever in vain commanded?
Or must we meet all Europe banded?
Have we forgot to conquer yet?
Or rather, shall they not, from Perm to Tauris' fountains,
From the hot Colchian steppes to Finland's icy mountains,
From the grey Kreml's half-shatter'd wall,
To far Kathay, in dotage buried--
A steelly rampart close and serried,
Rise--Russia's warriors--one and all?
Then send your numbers without number,
Your madden'd sons, your goaded slaves,
In Russia's plains there's room to slumber,
And well they'll know their brethen's graves!

* * * * *

We are not sure whether we are right in yielding to the temptation of transcribing in these sheets so many of the smaller lyrics and fugitive pieces of our author; and whether that very charm of _form_ and _expression_ which attract so strongly our admiration to the originals, should not have rather tended to deter us from so difficult an attempt as that of transposing them into another language. The chief grace and value of such productions certainly consists less in the quantity or weight of the gold employed in their composition, than in the beauty and delicacy of the image stamped or graven upon the metal; and the critic may object against us, if our critic be in a severe mood (quod Dii avertant boni!) the rashness of the numismatist, who should hope, in recasting the exquisite medals of antique art, to retain--or even imperfectly imitate--the touches of the Ionic or the Corinthian chisel.

True as is the above reasoning with respect to the slighter productions of poetry in all languages, it is peculiarly true when applied to the smaller offspring of Pushkin's muse; and were we not sufficiently convinced of the danger and the arduousness of our attempt, by our own experience and by analogy, we should have found abundant reason for diffidence in the often repeated counsels of Russians, who all unite in asserting that there is something so peculiarly delicate and inimitable in the diction and versification of these little pieces, as to be almost beyond the reach of a foreigner's _appreciation_, and, consequently, that any attempt at _imitation_ must, _a fortiori_, of necessity be a failure. Notwithstanding all this, and despite many sinister presages, we have obstinately persevered in our determination to clothe in an English dress those pieces, great and small--gems or flowers, productions perfumed by grace of diction, or heavy with weight of thought--which struck us most forcibly among the poems of our author; and we hope that our boldness, if not our success, may be rewarded with the approbation of such of our countrymen as may be curious to know something of the tone and physiognomy of the Russian literature.

PRESENTIMENT.

Clouds anew have gather'd o'er me,
Sad and grim, and dark and still;
Black and menacing before me
Glooms the Destiny of Ill ...

In contempt with fate contending,
Shall I bring, to meet her flood,
The enduring and unbending
Spirit of my youthful blood?

Worn with life-storm, cold and dreary,
Calmly I await the blast,
Saved from wreck, yet wet and weary,
I may find a port at last.

See, it comes--the hour thou fearest!
Hour escapeless! We must part!
Haply now I press thee, dearest,
For the last time, to my heart.

Angel mild and unrepining,
Gently breathe a fond farewell--
Thy soft eyes, through tear-drops shining,
Raised or lower'd--shall be my spell:

And thy memory abiding,
To my spirit shall restore
The hope, the pride, the strong confiding
Of my youthful days once more.

* * * * *

Perhaps our readers would like to see a _Russian Sonnet_. To many the name of such a thing will seem a union of two contradictory terms; but, nevertheless, here is a sonnet, and not a bad one either.

THE MADONNA.

With mighty pictures by the Great of Old
Ne'er did I long to deck my cell, intending
That visitors should gape and peer, commending
In Connoisseurship's jargon quaint and cold.

One picture only would I aye behold
On these still walls, 'mid these my toils unending;
One, and but one: From mists of cloudy gold
The Virgin Mother, o'er her Babe-God bending--

_Her_ eyes with grandeur, _His_ with reason bright--
Should calm look down, in glory and in light,
While Sion's palm beside should point to heaven.
And God hath granted this fond prayer of mine:
Thou, my Madonna, thou to me wert given,
Divinest form of beauty most divine!

* * * * *

The last production which we shall present in our present bundle of samples, selected from Pushkin's lyrics, is the irregular ode entitled _Andre Chenier_. This composition is founded upon one of the most well-known and tragic episodes of the first French Revolution: the execution of the young and gifted poet whose name forms the title of the lines. The story of Chenier's imprisonment and untimely death, as well as the various allusions to the beautiful verses addressed by him to his fellow-prisoner, La Jeune Captive, to his calm bearing on the scaffold, and to the memorable exclamation which was made in the last accents ever uttered by his lips; all these things are, doubtless, sufficiently familiar to our readers; or, if not, a single reference, either to any of the thousand books describing that most bloody and yet powerfully attractive period of French history--nay, the simple turning to the article _Chenier_, in any biographical dictionary, will be amply sufficient to recall to the memory the principal facts of the sad story which Pushkin has made the subject of his noble elegy. It will be therefore unnecessary for us to detail the life and death of the hero of the poem, and we shall only throw together, in these short preliminary remarks, the few quotations and notes appended by the Russian poet to his work. These will not be found of any very formidable extent; and as the poem itself is not of a considerable length, we trust that the various passages, which these quotations are adduced to illustrate, will be sufficiently perceptible, without our submitting to the necessity of appending them in the form of marginal annotations or foot-notes, a necessity which would force us to load the text with those unsightly appendages to books in general, and to poetry in particular--the asterisks and daggers of marginal reference.

The supposed soliloquy of the martyred poet, which forms the principal portion of Pushkin's elegiac ode, is little else than an amplification, or pathetic and dignified paraphrase, of the exquisite composition actually written by Chenier on the eve of his execution; a composition become classical in the French literature:--

"Comme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier zephyr
Anime le soir d'un beau jour,
Au pied de l'echafaud j'essaie encore ma lyre."

Of the few persons to whom allusion is made in the verses, _Abel_, _Fanny_, and the _Captive Maid_, all that it is necessary to know is, that the first was one of his friends, the companion of his early happiness, and the fellow-labourer of his early studies--"Abel, doux confidant de mes jeunes mysteres;" the second, one of his mistresses; and the third, a young lady, Mlle. de Coigny, who was for some time his fellow-prisoner, and the person to whom the poet addressed the touching verses which we have mentioned above. Mlle. de Coigny was the "Jeune Captive."

In justification of the very emphatic tone in which Pushkin has recorded the noble generosity and self-sacrifice which conducted Chenier to the revolutionary scaffold, it will be sufficient to quote the words of De la Touche, and to refer the reader to Chenier's Iambics, which drew down upon his head, and with good cause, the hatred and suspicion of Robespierre and his subordinate demons:--"Chenier avait merite la haine des factieux. Il avait celebre Charlotte Corday, fletri Collot d'Herbois, attaque Robespierre. On sait que le Roi avait demande a l'Assemblee par une lettre pleine de calme et de dignite, le droit d'appeler au peuple du jugement qui le condamnait. Cette lettre, signee dans la nuit du 17 au 18 Janvier, est d'Andre Chenier."--H. DE LA TOUCHE.

The unfortunate poet was executed on the 8th of Thermidor; _i.e._ the day before the fall of Robespierre. The fatal tumbril which bore Chenier to the guillotine, conveyed also to the same scaffold the poet Roucher, his friend:--"Ils parlerent de la poesie a leurs derniers moments; pour eux, apres l'amitie, c'etait la plus belle chose de la terre. Racine fut l'objet de leur entretien et de leur derriere admiration. Ils voulurent reciter ses vers; ils choisirent la premiere scene d'Andromaque."--H. DE LA TOUCHE.

At the place of execution, Chenier struck his forehead with his hand, and exclaimed--"Pourtant j'avais quelque chose la!"

ANDRE CHENIER.

"Ainsi, triste et captif, ma lyre toutefois S'eveillait."

While earth, with wonderment and fear,
O'er Byron's urn is sadly bending,
And unto Europe's dirge its ear
By Dante's side his shade is lending,

Another shade my voice doth crave,
Who erst, unsung, unwept, unfriended,
In the grim Terror-days descended
From the red scaffold, to the grave.

Love, Peace, the Woodlands, did inspire
That Poet's dreams, sublime and free;
And to that Bard a stranger's lyre
Shall ring--shall ring to him and thee.

The lifted axe--what! cannot slaughter tire?--
For a new victim calls again.
The bard is ready; hark, his pensive lyre
Awakes its last, its parting strain.

At dawn he dies--a mob-feast hot and gory;
But that young Poet's latest breath
What doth it sing? Freedom it sings and glory,
'Twas faithful even unto death.

" * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *

* * "I shall not see ye, days of bliss and freedom:
The scaffold calls. My last hours wearily
Drag on. At dawn I die. The headsman's hand defiling,
By the long hair will lift my head on high
Above the crowd unmoved and smiling.
Farewell! My homeless dust, O friends! shall ne'er repose
In that dear spot where erst we pass'd 'neath sunny bowers
In science and in feasts our careless days, and chose
Beforehand for our urns a place among the flowers.
And if, my friends, in after years
With sadness my remembrance moves ye,
O, grant my dying prayer!--the prayer of one who loves ye:
Weep, loved ones, weep my lot, with still and silent tears;
Beware, or by those drops suspicion ye may waken;
In this bad age, ye know, e'en tears for crimes are taken:
Brother for brother now, alas! must weep no more.

And yet another prayer: you've listen'd o'er and o'er
Unto my idle rhymes, my spirit's careless breathings,
Mournful and gay by turns, traditions and bequeathings
Of all my vanish'd youth. And hopes, and joy, and pain,
And tears, and love, my friends, those burning leaves contain,
Yea, they contain my life. From Abel and from Fanny
Gather them all; for they are gifts of Muses many.
Keep them. The stern cold world, and fashion's gilded hall,
Shall never hear of them. Alas! my head must fall
Untimely: my unripe and crude imagination
To glory hath bequeath'd no grand and high creation;
I shall die _all_. But ye, who love my parting soul,
Keep for yourselves, O friends! my true though simple scroll;
And when the storm is past, in a fond crowd assemble
Sometimes to read my lines--to read, to weep, and tremble,
And weep, and read again, and say--Yes, this is he;
These are his words. And I, from death's cold fetter free,
Will rise unseen and sit among ye in the bower;
And drink your tears, as drinks the desert-sand the shower--
In sweet oblivion.... Then shall, haply, be repaid
All my love-woes, and thou, haply, my _Captive Maid_,
Will list my love-song then, pale, mournful, but relenting...."
But for a while the Bard ceased here his sad lamenting,
Ceased for a moment's space, and his pale head he bow'd.
The spring-days of his youth, loves, woes, a busy crowd,
Flitted before him. Girls with languid eyes and tender,
And feasts, and songs, and eyes of dark and burning splendour,
All, all revived; and far to the dim past he flew,
Dream-wing'd. But soon stream'd forth his murmur-song anew:--

"Why luredst thou me astray, thou Genius evil-fated?
For love, for quiet arts, and peace, I was created;
Why did I leave the shade, and life's untroubled way,
And liberty, and friends, and peace, more dear than they!
Fate lull'd my golden youth, and cast a glamour round me,
And joy, with careless hand, and happiness, had crown'd me,
And the Muse shared my hours of leisure, pure and free.
In those so joyous nights, lighted with friendly glee,
How rang that dear abode with rhyme and merry laughter--
Waking the household gods--how rang each shouting rafter!
Then, weary of the feast, I from the wine-cup turn'd,
For a new sudden fire within my bosom burn'd,
And to my lady's bower I flew upon the morrow,
And found her half in wrath and half in girlish sorrow,
And with fond threats, and tears bedimming her soft eyes,
She cursed my age, still drown'd in ceaseless revelries,
She drove me from her, wept, forgave, and pouting chided:
How sweetly then my time like some bright river glided!
Ah, why from this calm life, in youth's most golden prime,
Plunged I in this abyss, this seething hell of crime,
Of passions fierce and fell, black ignorance, and madness,
Malice, and lust of gold! O visionary Gladness!
Where hast thou lured me, where? And was it then for me,
A worshipper of love, of peace, and poesy,
To brawl with sworders vile, wretches who stab for hire!
Was it for me to tame the restive courser's fire
To shake the rein, or wield the mercenary blade!
And yet, what shall I leave?--A trace that soon shall fade,
Of blind and senseless zeal; of courage--idle merit!--
Be dumb, my voice, be dumb! And thou, thou lying spirit,

Thou word, thou empty sound....Oh no!
Be still, ye murmurings of weakness!
And thou, O Bard! with rapture glow:
Thou hast not bent, with slavish meekness,
Before our age's shame thy brow;
The splendours of the wicked spurning,
Thou wav'dst a torch, terrific burning,
Whose lurid lustre fiercely fell
On that foul nest of vulture-rulers;
Loud rang thy lash and reach'd them well.

* * * * *

Around them hiss'd thy winged verse;
Thou did'st invoke upon them the avenger;
Thou sang'st to Marat's worshippers
The dagger and the Virgin-Nemesis!
When that old holy man strove from the axe to tear
With a chain-laden hand his master's crowned head,
Thou gav'st thy hand unto the noble pair;
Before ye, struck with horror, fell
That Areopagus of hell.
Be proud, O Bard! and thou, fiend-wolf of blood and guile,
Sport with my head awhile;
'Tis in thy clutch. But hark! and know, thou Godless one,
My shout shall follow thee, my triumph-laugh of joy!
Aye, drink our blood, live to destroy:
Thou'rt but a pigmy still; thy race shall soon be run.
An hour will come, an hour thou can'st not flee--
Thou shalt fall, Tyrant! Indignation
Will Wake at last. The sobs and mournings of a nation
Will waken weary destiny.
But now I go.... 'Tis time.... But thou shalt follow me!
I wait thy coming."

Thus rang the Bard's dying lay,
And all was still around. The dim lamp's quiet ray
'Gan pale before the gleam of morning,
Into that dungeon stream'd the dawn-light of the day,
Upon the grate he bends a glance unshrinking....
A noise. They come, they call. There is no hope! 'Tis they!
Locks, bolts, and bars, and chains, are clinking.
They call.... Stay, stay; one day, but one day more,
And he shall live in liberty
A mighty citizen, when all is o'er,
Amid a nation great and free.
The silent train moves on. There stands the headsman grim;
But the Bard's path of death, the ray of friendship lighteth,
Murmuring Glory's name, he mounts--His brow he smiteth--
Weep, Muse, for him!

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART XVIII.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKSPEARE.

On returning to London I found the world in the "transition state." The spirit of the people was changed; the nature of the war was changed; the principle of the great parties in the legislature was changed. A new era of the contest had arrived; and, in the midst of the general perplexity as to the nature of the approaching events, every one exhibited a conviction, that when they came their magnitude would turn all the struggles of the past into child's play.

I, too, had my share in the change. I had now passed my public novitiate, and had obtained my experience of statesmanship on a scale, if too small for history, yet sufficiently large to teach me the working of the machinery. National conspiracy, the council-chamber, popular ebullition, and the tardy but powerful action of public justice, had been my tutors; and I was now felt, by the higher powers, to be not unfit for trust in a larger field. A seat in the English House of Commons soon enabled me to give satisfactory evidence that I had not altogether overlooked the character of the crisis; and, after some interviews with the premier, his approval of my conduct in Ireland was followed by the proposal of office, with a seat in the cabinet.

I had thus attained, in the vigour of life, a distinction for which hundreds, perhaps thousands, had laboured through life in vain. But mine was no couch of rosy prosperity. The period was threatening. The old days of official repose were past, never to return. The state of Europe was hourly assuming an aspect of the deepest peril. The war had hitherto been but the struggle of armies; it now threatened to be the struggle of nations. It had hitherto lived on the natural resources of public expenditure; it now began to prey upon the vitals of the kingdom. The ordinary finance of England was to be succeeded by demands pressing heavily on the existing generation, and laying a hereditary burden on all that were to follow. The nature of our antagonist deepened the difficulty. All the common casualties of nations were so far from breaking the enemy down, that they only gave him renewed power. Poverty swelled his ranks; confiscation swelled his coffers; bankruptcy gave him strength; faction invigorated his government; and insubordination made him invincible. In the midst of this confusion, even a new terror arose. The democracy of France, after startling Europe, had seemed to be sinking into feebleness and apathy, when a new wonder appeared in the political hemisphere, too glaring and too ominous to suffer our eyes to turn from it for a moment. The Consulate assumed the rule of France. Combining the fiery vigour of republicanism with the perseverance of monarchy, it now carried the whole force of the country into foreign fields. Every foreign capital began to tremble. The whole European system shook before a power which smote it with the force of a cannon-ball against a crumbling bastion. The extraordinary man who now took the lead in France, had touched the string which vibrated in the heart of every native of the soil. He had found them weary of the crimes of the democracy; he told them that a career of universal supremacy was open before them. He had found them degraded by the consciousness of riot and regicide; he told them that they were the chevaliers of the new age, and destined to eclipse the chevaliers of all the ages past. His Italian campaigns, by their rapidity, their fine combinations, and their astonishing success, had created a new art of war. He had brought them romantic triumphs from the land of romance. Day by day the populace of the capital were summoned to see pageants of Italian standards, cannon, and prisoners. Every courier that galloped through the streets brought tidings of some new conquest; and every meeting of the Councils was employed in announcing the addition of some classic province, the overthrow of some hostile diadem, or the arrival of some convoy of those most magnificent of all the spoils of war, the treasures of the Italian arts. France began to dream of the conquest of the world.

The contrast between her past calamities and her present splendour, powerfully heightened the illusion. France loves illusion; she has always rejoiced in glittering deceptions, even with the perfect knowledge that they were deceptions; and here stood the most dazzling of political charlatans, the great wonder-worker, raising phantoms of national glory even out of the charnel. The wrecks of faction, the remnants of the monarchy, and the corpses lying headless in the shadow of the guillotine, gave all semblance to the conception--France _was_ a charnel. Her people, by nature rushing into extremes, wild and fierce, yet gallant and generous, had become at length conscious of the national fall in the eyes of Europe. They had been scandalized by the rudeness, the baseness, and the brutishness, of rabble supremacy. They gazed upon their own crimsoned hands and tarnished weapons with intolerable disgust; and it was in this moment of depression that they saw a sudden beam of military renown shot across the national darkness. After so long defeat that it had extinguished all but the memory of her old triumphs, France was a conqueror; after a century of helpless exhaustion, she had risen into almost supernatural vigour; after a hundred years, scarcely marked by a single victory, her capital rang with the daily sound of successful battles against the veterans of Frederick and Maria Theresa; after lingering for generations in the obscurity so bitter to the popular heart, France had been suddenly thrown into the broadest lustre of European sovereignty. The world _was_ changed; and the limits of that change offered only a more resistless lure to the popular passion, for their being still indistinct to the keenest eye of man.

But our chief struggle was at home, and the reaction of our foreign disasters came with terrible weight upon a cabinet already tottering. We saw its fate. Days and nights of the most anxious consultation, could not relieve us from the hourly increasing evidence, that the Continent was on the verge of ruin. The voice of Opposition, reinforced by the roar of the multitude, could no longer be shut out by the curtains of the council-chamber. Fox, always formidable, was never more confident and more popular, than when he made the House ring with prophecies of national downfall. His attacks were now incessant. He flung his hand-grenades night after night into our camp, and constantly with still greater damage. We still fought, but it was the fight of despair. Pitt was imperturbable; but there was not one among his colleagues who did not feel the hopelessness of calling for public reliance, when, in every successive debate, we heard the leader of Opposition contemptuously asking, what answer we had to the Gazette crowded with bankruptcy? to the resolutions of great bodies of the people denouncing the war? or to the deadly evidence of its effects in the bulletin which he held in his hand, announcing some new defeat of our allies; some new treaty of submission; some new barter of provinces for the precarious existence of foreign thrones?

In all my recollections of public life, this was the period of the deepest perplexity. The name of the great minister has been humiliated by those who judge of the past only by the present. But then all was new. The general eye of statesmanship had been deceived by the formal grandeur of the continential sovereignties. They had lain untouched, like the bodies of their kings, with all their armour on, and with every feature unchanged; and such they might have remained for ages to come, had not a new force broken open their gilded and sculptured shrines, torn off their cerements, and exposed them to the light and air. Then a touch extinguished them; the armour dropped into dust; the royal robes dissolved; the royal features disappeared; and the whole illusion left nothing but its moral behind.

It can be no dishonour to the memory of the first of statesmen, to acknowledge that he had not the gift of prophecy. Europe had never before seen a war of the people. The burning passions, rude vigour, and remorseless daring of the multitude, were phenomena of which man knows no more than he knows of the materials of destruction which lie hid in the central caverns of the globe, and which some new era may be suffered to develope, for the new havoc of posterity. Even to this hour, I think that the true source of revolutionary triumph has been mistaken. It was not in the furious energy of its factions, nor in the wild revenge of the people, nor even in the dazzling view of national conquest. These were but gusts of the popular tempest, currents of the great popular tide. But the mighty mover of all was the sudden change from the disgusts and depressions of serfdom, into a sense that all the world of possession lay before the bold heart and the ruthless hand. Every form of wealth and enjoyment was offered to the man who had begun life in the condition of one chained to the ground, and who could never have hoped to change his toil but for the grave. But the barrier was now cast down, and all were free to rush in. The treasury of national honours was suddenly flung open, and all might share the spoil. This was the true secret of the astonishing power of the Revolution. The man who was nothing to-day, might be everything to-morrow. The conscript might be a captain, a colonel, a general, before the Austrian or Prussian soldier could be a corporal. Who can wonder at the march of France, or the flight of her enemies?

Although every night now produced a debate, and the demand on the activity and vigilance of ministers was incessant and exhausting, the real debates in both Houses were few in comparison with those of later times. In those pitched battles of the great parties, their whole strength was mustered from every quarter; the question was long announced; and its decision was regarded as giving the most complete measure of the strength of the Cabinet and Opposition. One of these nights came, unfortunately for ministers, on the very day in which the bulletin arrived, announcing the signature of the first Austrian armistice. The passage of the Tyrol had stripped Austria of its mountain barrier. Terror had done the rest; and the armistice was signed within three marches of Vienna! The courier who had been sent to the Austrian ambassador, and had been permitted to pass through France, reported the whole nation to be in a frenzy of triumph. He had every where seen civic processions, military displays, and illuminations in the cities. The exultation of the people had risen to the utmost height of national enthusiasm; and Europe was pronounced, by every Frenchman, from the Directory to the postilion, to be at their feet.