Book Read Free

The Queen of Spades and Selected Works (Pushkin Collection)

Page 3

by Alexander Pushkin


  God grant, my reason ne’er betray me;

  Nay, better, fever-waste or want.

  Nay, better, toil and starve.

  ‘Tis not that I my mind or wit

  Have e’er prized high, or that with them

  I were not glad to part.

  If but my freedom were untouched,

  With joy and gladness would I make

  My home in forest dark.

  With raving frenzy I should sing,

  Myself forget, and lose my soul

  In weird discordant dreams.

  Strength uncontrolled would then be mine,

  Like wildest storm that sweeps the fields,

  And lays the forest bare.

  Then I should hearken song of waves,

  Be filled with joy, and gaze upon

  The empty, vacant sky.

  Ay, there’s the rub: to lose my mind,

  Be feared, as men do fear the plague,

  And close in prison locked:

  And when the madman’s chained, in crowds

  They’ll come, and through the grating stare,

  And tease the surly beast.

  And then, at night, compelled to hear,

  Instead of nightingale’s high note,

  Or forest’s murmur soft,

  The frantic shrieks of prison-mates,

  Muttered oaths of warders sullen,

  And creaking noise of chains.

  THE TALISMAN

  Where fierce the surge with awful bellow

  Doth ever lash the rocky wall;

  And where the moon most brightly mellow

  Dost beam when mists of evening fall;

  Where midst his harem’s countless blisses

  The Moslem spends his vital span,

  A Sorceress there with gentle kisses

  Presented me a Talisman.

  And said: until thy latest minute

  Preserve, preserve my Talisman;

  A secret power it holds within it —

  ‘Twas love, true love the gift did plan.

  From pest on land, or death on ocean,

  When hurricanes its surface fan,

  O object of my fond devotion!

  Thou scap’st not by my Talisman.

  The gem in Eastern mine which slumbers,

  Or ruddy gold ‘twill not bestow;

  ‘Twill not subdue the turban’d numbers,

  Before the Prophet’s shrine which bow;

  Nor high through air on friendly pinions

  Can bear thee swift to home and clan,

  From mournful climes and strange dominions —

  From South to North — my Talisman.

  But oh! when crafty eyes thy reason

  With sorceries sudden seek to move,

  And when in Night’s mysterious season

  Lips cling to thine, but not in love —

  From proving then, dear youth, a booty

  To those who falsely would trepan

  From new heart wounds, and lapse from duty,

  Protect thee shall my Talisman.

  THE MERMAID

  Close by a lake, begirt with forest,

  To save his soul, a Monk intent,

  In fasting, prayer and labours sorest

  His days and nights, secluded, spent;

  A grave already to receive him

  He fashion’d, stooping, with his spade,

  And speedy, speedy death to give him,

  Was all that of the Saints he pray’d.

  As once in summer’s time of beauty,

  On bended knee, before his door,

  To God he paid his fervent duty,

  The woods grew more and more obscure:

  Down o’er the lake a fog descended,

  And slow the full moon, red as blood,

  Midst threat’ning clouds up heaven wended —

  Then gazed the Monk upon the flood.

  He gaz’d, and, fear his mind surprising,

  Himself no more the hermit knows:

  He sees with foam the waters rising,

  And then subsiding to repose,

  And sudden, light as night-ghost wanders,

  A female thence her form uprais’d,

  Pale as the snow which winter squanders,

  And on the bank herself she plac’d.

  She gazes on the hermit hoary,

  And combs her long hair, tress by tress;

  The Monk he quakes, but on the glory

  Looks wistful of her loveliness;

  Now becks with hand that winsome creature,

  And now she noddeth with her head,

  Then sudden, like a fallen meteor,

  She plunges in her watery bed.

  No sleep that night the old man cheereth,

  No prayer throughout next day he pray’d

  Still, still, against his wish, appeareth

  Before him that mysterious maid.

  Darkness again the wood investeth,

  The moon midst clouds is seen to sail,

  And once more on the margin resteth

  The maiden beautiful and pale.

  With head she bow’d, with look she courted,

  And kiss’d her hand repeatedly,

  Splashed with the water, gaily sported,

  And wept and laugh’d like infancy —

  She names the monk, with tones heart-urging

  Exclaims “O Monk, come, come to me!”

  Then sudden midst the waters merging

  All, all is in tranquillity.

  On the third night the hermit fated

  Beside those shores of sorcery,

  Sat and the damsel fair awaited,

  And dark the woods began to be —

  The beams of morn the night mists scatter,

  No Monk is seen then, well a day!

  And only, only in the water

  The lasses view’d his beard of grey.

  ANCIENT RUSSIAN SONG

  I.

  The windel-straw nor grass so shook and trembled;

  As the good and gallant stripling shook and trembled;

  A linen shirt so fine his frame invested,

  O’er the shirt was drawn a bright pelisse of scarlet

  The sleeves of that pelisse depended backward,

  The lappets of its front were button’d backward,

  And were spotted with the blood of unbelievers;

  See the good and gallant stripling reeling goeth,

  From his eyeballs hot and briny tears distilling;

  On his bended bow his figure he supporteth,

  Till his bended bow has lost its goodly gilding;

  Not a single soul the stripling good encounter’d,

  Till encounter’d he the mother dear who bore him:

  O my boy, O my treasure, and my darling!

  By what mean hast thou render’d thee so drunken,

  To the clay that thou bowest down thy figure,

  And the grass and the windel-straws art grasping?

  To his Mother thus the gallant youth made answer:

  ‘Twas not I, O mother dear, who made me drunken,

  But the Sultan of the Turks has made me drunken

  With three potent, various potations;

  The first of them his keenly cutting sabre;

  The next of them his never failing jav’lin;

  The third of them his pistol’s leaden bullet.

  II.

  O rustle not, ye verdant oaken branches!

  Whilst I tell the gallant stripling’s tale of daring;

  When this morn they led the gallant youth to judgment

  Before the dread tribunal of the grand Tsar,

  Then our Tsar and Gosudar began to question:

  Tell me, tell me, little lad, and peasant bantling!

  Who assisted thee to ravage and to plunder;

  I trow thou hadst full many wicked comrades.

  I’ll tell thee, Tsar! our country’s hope and glory,

  I’ll tell thee all the truth, without a falsehood:

&n
bsp; Thou must know that I had comrades, four in number;

  Of my comrades four the first was gloomy midnight;

  The second was a steely dudgeon dagger;

  The third it was a swift and speedy courser;

  The fourth of my companions was a bent bow;

  My messengers were furnace-harden’d arrows.

  Replied the Tsar, our country’s hope and glory:

  Of a truth, thou little lad, and peasant’s bantling!

  In thieving thou art skill’d and giving answers;

  For thy answers and thy thieving I’ll reward thee

  With a house upon the windy plain constructed

  Of two pillars high, surmounted by a cross-beam.

  III.

  O thou field of my delight so fair and verdant!

  Thou scene of all my happiness and pleasure!

  O how charmingly Nature hath array’d thee

  With the soft green grass and juicy clover,

  And with corn-flowers blooming and luxuriant.

  One thing there is alone, that doth deform thee;

  In the midst of thee, O field, so fair and verdant!

  A clump of bushes stands — a clump of hazels,

  Upon their very top there sits an eagle,

  And upon the bushes’ top — upon the hazels,

  Compress’d within his claw he holds a raven,

  And its hot blood he sprinkles on the dry ground;

  And beneath the bushes’ clump — beneath the hazels,

  Lies void of life the good and gallant stripling;

  All wounded, pierc’d and mangled is his body.

  As the little tiny swallow or the chaffinch,

  Round their warm and cosey nest are seen to hover,

  So hovers there the mother dear who bore him;

  And aye she weeps, as flows a river’s water;

  His sister weeps as flows a streamlet’s water;

  His youthful wife, as falls the dew from heaven —

  The Sun, arising, dries the dew of heaven.

  Poems Translated by Ivan Panin

  POEMS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

  MON PORTRAIT

  Vous me demandez mon portrait,

  Mais peint d’après nature:

  Mon cher, il sera bientôt fait,

  Quoique en miniature.

  Je sais un jeune polisson

  Encore dans les classes:

  Point sot, je le dis sans façon

  Et sans fades grimaces.

  Onc, il ne fut de babillard,

  Ni docteur de Sorbonne

  Plus ennuyeux et plus braillard

  Que moi-même en personne.

  Ma taille à celle des plus longs

  Los n’est point égalée;

  J’ai le teint frais, les cheveux blonds,

  Et la tête bouclée.

  J’aime et le monde, et son fracas,

  Je hais la solitude;

  J’abhorre et noises et débats,

  Et tant soit peu l’étude.

  Spectacles, bals me plaisent fort,

  Et d’après ma pensée

  Je dirais ce que j’aime encore,

  Si je n’étais au lycée.

  Après cela, mon cher ami,

  L’on peut me reconnâitre:

  Oui! tel que le bon Dieu me fit,

  Je veux toujours parâitre.

  Vrai demon pour l’espièglerie,

  Vrai singe par sa mine,

  Beaucoup et trop d’étourderie, —

  Ma foi — voilà Poushkine.

  MY PEDIGREE

  WITH scorning laughter at a fellow writer,

  In a chorus the Russian scribes

  With name of aristocrat me chide:

  Just look, if please you... nonsense what!

  Court Coachman not I, nor assessor,

  Nor am I nobleman by cross;

  No academician, nor professor,

  I’m simply of Russia a citizen.

  Well I know the times’ corruption,

  And, surely, not gainsay it shall I:

  Our nobility but recent is:

  The more recent it, the more noble ‘t is.

  But of humbled races a chip,

  And, God be thanked, not alone

  Of ancient Lords am scion I;

  Citizen I am, a citizen!

  Not in cakes my grandsire traded,

  Not a prince was newly-baked he;

  Nor at church sang he in choir,

  Nor polished he the boots of Tsar;

  Was not escaped a soldier he

  From the German powdered ranks;

  How then aristocrat am I to be?

  God be thanked, I am but a citizen.

  My grandsire Radsha in warlike service

  To Alexander Nefsky was attached.

  The Crowned Wrathful, Fourth Ivan,

  His descendants in his ire had spared.

  About the Tsars the Pushkins moved;

  And more than one acquired renown,

  When against the Poles battling was

  Of Nizhny Novgorod the citizen plain.

  When treason conquered was and falsehood,

  And the rage of storm of war,

  When the Romanoffs upon the throne

  The nation called by its Chart —

  We upon it laid our hands;

  The martyr’s son then favored us;

  Time was, our race was prized,

  But I... am but a citizen obscure.

  Our stubborn spirit us tricks has played;

  Most irrepressible of his race,

  With Peter my sire could not get on;

  And for this was hung by him.

  Let his example a lesson be:

  Not contradiction loves a ruler,

  Not all can be Prince Dolgorukys,

  Happy only is the simple citizen.

  My grandfather, when the rebels rose

  In the palace of Peterhof,

  Like Munich, faithful he remained

  To the fallen Peter Third;

  To honor came then the Orloffs,

  But my sire into fortress, prison —

  Quiet now was our stem race,

  And I was born merely — citizen.

  Beneath my crested seal

  The roll of family charts I’ve kept;

  Not running after magnates new,

  My pride of blood I have subdued;

  I’m but an unknown singer

  Simply Pushkin, not Moussin,

  My strength is mine, not from court:

  I am a writer, a citizen.

  1830.

  MY MONUMENT

  A MONUMENT not hand-made I have for me erected;

  The path to it well-trodden will not overgrow;

  Risen higher has it with unbending head

  Than the monument of Alexander.

  No! not all of me shall die! my soul in hallowed lyre

  Shall my dust survive, and escape destruction —

  And famous be I shall, as long as on earth sublunar

  One bard at least living shall remain.

  My name will travel over the whole of Russia great,

  And there pronounce my name shall every living tongue:

  The Slav’s proud scion, and the Finn, and the savage yet

  Tungus, and the Calmuck, lover of the steppe.

  And long to the nation I shall be dear:

  For rousing with my lyre its noble feelings,

  For extolling freedom in a cruel age,

  For calling mercy upon the fallen.

  The bidding of God, O Muse, obey.

  Fear not insult, ask not crown:

  Praise and blame take with indifference

  And dispute not with the fool!

  August, 1836.

  MY MUSE

  IN the days of my youth she was fond of me,

  And the seven-stemmed flute she handed me.

  To me with smile she listened; and already gently

  Along the openings echoing of the woods

  Was p
laying I with fingers tender:

  Both hymns solemn, god-inspired

  And peaceful song of Phrygian shepherd.

  From morn till night in oak’s dumb shadow

  To the strange maid’s teaching intent I listened;

  And with sparing reward me gladdening

  Tossing back her curls from her forehead dear,

  From my hands the flute herself she took.

  Now filled the wood was with breath divine

  And the heart with holy enchantment filled.

  1823.

  POEMS OF LOVE

  THE STORM-MAID

  HAST thou seen on the rock the maid,

  In robe of white above the waves,

  When seething in the storm dark

  Played the sea with its shores, —

  When the glare of lightning hourly

  With rosy glimmer her lighted up,

  And the wind beating and flapping

  Struggled with her flying robe?

  Beautiful’s the sea in the storm dark,

  Glorious is the sky even without its blue;

  But trust me: on the rock the maid

  Excels both wave, and sky, and storm.

  1825.

  THE BARD

  HAVE ye beard in the woods the nightly voice

  Of the bard of love, of the bard of his grief?

  When the fields in the morning hour were still,

  The flute’s sad sound and simple

  Have ye heard?

  Have ye met in the desert darkness of the forest

  The bard of love, the bard of his grief?

  Was it a track of tears, was it a smile,

  Or a quiet glance filled with melancholy,

  Have ye met?’

  Have ye sighed, listening to the calm voice

  Of the bard of love, of the bard of grief?

  When in the woods the youth ye saw

  And met the glance of his dulled eyes,

  Have ye sighed?

  1816.

  SPANISH LOVE-SONG

  EVENING Zephyr

  Waves the ether.

  Murmurs,

  Rushes

  The Guadalquivir.

  Now the golden moon has risen,

  Quiet,... Tshoo... guitar’s now heard....

  Now the Spanish girl young

  O’er the balcony has leaned.

  Evening Zephyr

  Waves the ether.

  Murmurs,

  Rushes

  The Guadalquivir.

  Drop thy mantle, angel gentle,

  And appear as fair as day!

  Thro’ the iron balustrade

  Put thy wondrous tender foot!

  Evening Zephyr

  Waves the ether.

  Murmurs,

  Rushes

  The Guadalquivir.

 

‹ Prev