Wecome, singer,
Comrade, friend--though a flatterer,
To the humble abode of your brother;
Lay down your travelling staff in my corner
And with an emotional plea
Honor my home and hearth.
Sit down--here's a goblet! in honor of our friends!
And of sweet remembrance,
And a pleasant meeting,
And the heavens that preserved us!
You were under the banners of glory;
You saw, my friend, the bloody consequences
For the enemies that hurled themselves on Russia,
Their punishment and the horrors of their escape.
You built your bivouac of snow,
Taught yourself humility
And downed your bread with water
"Praise be to golden moderation!"
You exclaimed with the singer of Tiburia.
You saw the borders of Asia;
You beheld the land of the ferocious Mongols [of the Golden Hord]
And only burning debris
Where Sheri-Sarai used to stand,
The ancient abode of Batu;
Contemplative viewer of ruins,
In days past you beheld
The real pictures
And in them you read the horrible fate
Of the new Batu.
In Sarept there was a different spectacle:
There a simple brotherhood of Christians
Protected by their sense of peace
From transgressions harmful to the heart,
From pleasures dear to the heart.
There things are eternally one and the same
To everything there is a season: to work, leisure;
And light-hearted fun
You forged order there.
Seeing happiness and peace
You devoted all your passion
To holy lack of suffering;
You saw, how in family quietude,
Guarded by maternal hearts,
Maidens were happy with simple things
And young boys were hard-working
Saved from stormy passions
By the healing hand of work;
You saw, how entering God's temple,
They humbly turned their eyes
To the heavens with solemn prayer
And served the Divinity with their heart,
Rejecting the darkness of superstition....
What compares to the exaltation,
They feel for the miracle of salvation
In the passion of their faith?. .
All is quiet . . . it is midnight . . . nothing stirs. . .
And in the throes of reverence
All brothers await the moment
When the chime-herald
Proclaims: Christ is risen! . .
And suddenly. . . in the haze. . . in the midst of silence,
As if from on high
The Herald Angel with his horn,
Trumpets his tidings . . . the altar burns,
And the brothers fall to their knees,
And the solemn hymn sounds forth,
And all move to the realm of the deceased
Oh! what a heart-moving scene!
In the shade of leafy poplars
Birches, oaks, and mulberry trees,
Amidst tulips, aromatic roses
Rows of graves appear:
Here are the graves of old folks, there the grave of a child,
There, of boys, there, of young girls--
And Faith besides their ashes
Set aflame the torch of Hope. . .
They go to the graves of their loved ones
With the joyous tidings of resurrection;
And all--the open, lighted temple,
Where, the mystery of salvation, it seems,
Takes place at this very hour,
The solemn voice of the choir
And brotherly kissing by the graves
(Having brought remembrance
And offerings of tender tears),
And the silence of the graves,
And the participating heavens
Are in an invisible union with earth--
All is alive, filled with divinity;
And witnesses the triumph of faithful brothers
From a secret abode
Friendly shadows come out
And their transformed state responds
To the sweet song: "Christ is risen!". .
Addressing their hearts: "Indeed he is risen"
And the grave itself speaks:
We will be resurrected! Our Saviour is alive!--
And having left these parts
You saw how the Terek in its rapid flow
Roared amidst vineyards,
Where often, hiding on the shore
A Chechen or a Circassian would sit
With a deadly lasso under his felt cloak;
And in the distance before you
Dressed in light blue mist
Mountain billowed above mountain
And in the midst of their multitude, a grey giant
Like a storm cloud, the two-headed El'borus. [=Mt. Elbrus]
There everything glows with
A terrible and grandiose beauty:
The mossy masses of rocks
Waterfalls, spring, roaring,
Into the darkness of the abyss from granite crags;
Forests, not disturbed from the sleep of ages
By the sound of axes, nor the
Joyous voices of men,
Into the twilight canopy of which
A ray of light still has not penetrated,
Where only deer from time to time
Hearing the menacing cries of eagles
Push their way through, rattle the branches
And light-hooved goats
Leap from cliff to cliff.
Where everywhere appears before one's eyes
The magnificence of creation!
But there--midst the solitude
Of valleys, hiding in the mountains,--
Roost both the Balkar, and the Bakh,
The Abazekh, and Kamukhinian,
And Karbulak, and Abazinian,
Chechereian, and Shapsuk;
Arquebus, hauberks, saber, bow
And horse--fast-hooved comrade-in-arms
Theirs are both treasures and gods;
Like chamois, they leap across mountains
Throw death down a cliff;
Or along marshy shores
In the tall grass, in the forest thicket
All dispersed, they await their booty.
The cliffs of freedom is their refuge;
But the days in the auls (=villages) amble by
On the crutches of morose idleness;
There their life is a dream; crowding in a circle
And having thrust their chubuks [=pipes]
into a brotherly pot of tobacco
They sit like shadows in the swirling smoke
And speak about killings
Or praise the accurate arquebuses
From which their forefathers shot;
Or sharpen their sabers on flint
Preparing for new killings.
You saw the shores of the Don;
You beheld, how it watered the silken
Boundless meadows,
Animated by herds;
You beheld, how it with its quiet waters
Midst vineyards
Flowed, green
And with its clear moisture reflected
The shores, covered with flocks
Rows of crowded furrows
And on the slopes of the hills
The stanitsy [=villages] of the Don bogatyrs [= epic heroes--ref. to Don Cossacks];
You often heard how singers
Glorified the native Don
The quietude of happy stanitsy
Warriors and their ardent steeds;
Humbly did you bow down before
The abode of Vikhr' [=whirlwind]-Ataman
And from the hallowed glass
You drank his health in Tsymlia-wine
Surrounded by old men,
And grey-haired heroes
Your fellow-countrymen in an alien land
"Hurray!" they shouted after you.
Now by the hand of fate
You have been brought to the abode of your brother
With him you will remember the golden shadows
Of those irretrievable times
When we--young guests
At dear Life's party
Drank joy from a full cup
And toasted To our happiness!
In our prophetic ardour. . .
My friend, a splendid prophesy!
But when will it be fulfilled?
Still distant and unknown
Is all that is allotted to us here. . .
And time flies irretrievably
And life-the-traitor on its heels;
We leave, one after the other;
Friend, look back. . . another brother lost,
The world is emptier, hour by hour;
Emptier is the road ahead of us.
But so be it! . . here your poet
With his humble muse, with his friends
Lives in a modest corner
And bides the weather by the sea.
And you, my friend, to gladden the future
With a dream,
You rush, playing on magic strings
To awaken in it the sleeping genius;
And spell-bound by you
As if through a transparent shroud
I see the wonders of yore:
There is our beautiful sun,
Prince Vladimir with his bogatyrs [=knights, epic heroes];
There streams the Dnjepr between the rocks;
There is the gold-topped Kiev city;
And crowds of Busurmans [=Turks], on alert
Seethe around the crenellated walls;
Helmets and hauberks glimmer;
From calls, horse-hooves' clatter,
From the banging of clubs, the whistles of slings
A trembling rumble is heard afar;
There, clad in armour, the wondrous
Dobrynia, the mighty bogatyr,
And his steed Goldenhoof;
Through steppes and deep forests
The hero does not gallop, he flies,
Routing the Zilants, the Polkans,
And witches, and wonders, and giants;
And in secret, a maiden, a beauty
Beyond the faraway steppes and forests
Flies after him in spirit;
Leaning her head on her hand,
Looks out at the path from her terem [=women's quarter]
And thus immersed in thought she speaks:
"Oh, wind, wind! why do you blow?
Why don't you come from my dear one,
Why don't you bring me joy;
Play with my braid high up there,
In the vault of the heavens with the clouds,
On the blue sea with the ships--
Blow me a feathered arrow
From my friend--my gladness."
The beautiful maiden moans, weeps;
And her friend gallops over hills and dales,
Flying beyond thirty lands;
Damp earth is his bed;
His pillow--his shield; his night's lodging-- an oak grove;
There he struggles with Baba Yaga [=witch in house on chicken legs]
There from a stream with living waters
Guarded by the six-headed dragon,
He drinks from his golden scoop.
There, before him, the shaggy cannibal Dubynia
Waves his cudgel;
There Gorynia blocks his path;
And there he is suddenly carried
To the dwelling of wizards;
Before him the terrible forest grows black!
In the distance shines a beautiful brightness;
The closer he comes--the further the light recedes;
There, the heavy flight of the eagle owl,
The cawing of ravens resounds;
The laughter of mermaids is heard;
There, suddenly from behind a grey stump
The crosslegged forest sprite comes out;
And suddenly before him stand palaces
As if poured out of fire--
The palace of the magic Tsar-maiden;
With the beauty of white cowls
Twelve maidens come up to him
And sing a song of greeting;
And he . . . But what? where did I
fly after you, dreaming--
You are a wizard and not a poet;
You with your allmighty strings
Brought to life my fallen genius . . .
And who, pray tell me, taught
You to foretell with eight verses
On the white pages of this book
My whole secret lot?
Admit it or not? . . . I watch with anguish
With unconquerable anxiety
On these white sheets,
And it seems, with an invisible finger
In invisible strokes
Fate already wrote on them.
Be that as it may . . . friendship has now
Bequeathed to you this gift;
It is yours . . . pray to Fate,
That the pages be filled in it.
When, my friend, I myself
Will give it to you at a happy time
And you will read this fabulation,
As the truth, told by me;
Then know, that my lot is happy
That under the eyes of Providence,
Nourished by life in silence,
Close to everything dear to me
On the wings of imagination,
Happy here, I flew to that world beyond
And that I was not abandoned
By my faithful angel of inspiration. . .
But my friend, perhaps . . . how is one to find out?
It will remain empty,
And some day a hand unknown
Must give it to you
As a holy pledge of remembrance,
Alas! and as a sign that in this life
My soul's dearest
Wishes did not come true.
Take it . . . and take pity on me.
NOTES: The poem was written in January 1814 as a response to Voeikov's "Epistle to Zhukovsky from Sarept in 1813." It first appeared in Vestnik Evropy [Herald of Europe] 6 (1814).
Voeikov, A. F. (11778-1839)--journalist, poet, literary critic.
Sarept--the Volga area settlement where Voeikov spent time during his travels in Southern Russia in 1813.
The singer of Tiburia--the Roman poet Horace who had estates in Tiburia, Italy.
The author's dream flight in the last section takes place in the realm of Russian folklore, teaming with brave heroes and terrifying monsters, mostly from Russian byliny--heroic oral folk epics