To Chaadayev

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin*


Not long did youth's vain hopes delude us,
Its dreams of love and prideful fame.
They briefly, fleetingly persued us,
Then passed like mist and no more came.
But still we chafe, our hearts afire,
Under the yoke of tyranny,
And, heedful of our country's plea,
Her true deliverance desire.
We freedom wait with all the fever,
The hidden ache and eagerness
That 'fore the hour of promised bliss
Comsume the young and ardent lover.
While freedom's flame within us lives,
While we by honour's voice are guided,
To Russia, comrade, let us give
Our spirits whole and undivided.
Dear friend, have faith: the wakeful skies
Presage a dawn of wonder--Russia
Shall from her age-old sleep arise,
And despotism, impatient, crushing,
Upon its ruins our names incise!


*Translated from Russian by Irina Zheleznova

Elegy

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin*


Of my mad years the vanished mirth and laughter
Affect me like a fume-filled morning after.
Not so past pain--like wine is it to me
That as the years go by gains potency.
Sad is the path before me: toil and sorrow
Lie on the restless seaways of the morrow.

And yet from thought of death, my friends, I shrink;
I want to live--to suffer and to think,
To taste of care and grief and tribulation,
Of rapture and of sweet exhilaration;
Be drunk with harmony; touch fancy's strings
And freely weep o'er its imaginings....
And love's last flash, its smile of farewell tender
My sad decline may yet less mournful render.


*Translated from Russian by Irina Zheleznova

Bacchanal Song

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin*


Why, revelry's voice, are you still?
Ring out, songs of Bacchus, our patron!
Long life to you, maiden and matron,
Ye fair ones who give of your love with a will!
Drink, friend, drink with gusto and relish!
As I do in mine,
In your glass of wine
Fling lightly the ring that you cherish!
Come, let's clink our glasses and high let us raise them!
Hail, muses! Hail, reason! In song let us praise them!
Thou, bright sun of genius, shine on!
Like this ancient lamp that grows dimmer
And fades with the coming of dawn,
So false wisdom pales at the first tiny glimmer
Of true wisdom's ne'er-fading light...
Live, radiant day! Perish, darkness and night!


*Translated from Russian by Irina Zheleznova

The Prophet

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin*


My lonely heart athirst, I trod
A barren waste when there before me
A winged seraph, silent, stood
And on the crossroad waited for me.
Upon my orbs of sightless clay
His fingers, light as dreams, he lay,
And like an eagle's eyes when frighted
The bird is, they... they oped and sighted
The earth and sky... He touched my ear,
The t'other, and, most marked and clear,
There came to me the gentle flutter
Of angel's wings, I heard the vine
Push through the earth and skyward climb,
The deep-sea monsters underwater
Like fishes glide... My sinful tongue
And sly from out my mouth he wrung,
And this with bloody hand removing,
O'er me he did relentless lean
And push a serpent's sting between
My deadened lips... Then, swiftly drawing
His shining sword, he cleaved my breast,
Plucked out my quivering heart, and, sombre
And grim of aspect, coolly thrust
Into the gaping hole an ember
That ran with flame... I lay there, dead,
And God, God spake, and this He said:
"Arise, O sage, my summons hearing,
Do as I bid, by naught deterred;
Stride o'er the earth, a prophet, searing
The hearts of men with righteous word."


*Translated from Russian by Irina Zheleznova

There is nothing so red as red cranberry juice

Ian Fergusen


There is nothing so red as red cranberry juice
Nothing so pale as your eyes.
I've seen nothing so green as a green jelly bean
And nothing so frail as these skies.

Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff

A. E. Housman


"Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh, many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie god knows where,
And carried half-way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt
- I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

Go, Lovely Rose

Edmund Waller


Go, lovely rose,
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And blush not so to be admired.

Then die, that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee,
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair.