Now summer days toward autumn crept;
A wet and stormy wind was blowing,
And Neva’s sullen waters flowing
Plashed on the wharf and muttered there
Complaining – beat the slippery stair
As suitors beat in supplication
Unheeded at a judge’s door.
In gloom and rain, amid the roar
Of winds, – a sound of desolation
With cries of watchmen interchanged
Afar, who through the darkness ranged, —
Our poor Evgeny woke; and dounted,
By well-remembered terrors haunted,
He started sharply, rose in haste,
And forth upon his wanderings paced;
– And halted on a sudden, staring
About him silently, and wearing
A look of wild alarm and awe.
Where had he come? For now he saw
The pillars of that lofty dwelling
Where, on the perron sentinelling,
Two lion-figures stand at guard
Like living things, keep watch and ward
With lifted paw. Upright and glooming,
Above the stony barrier looming,
The Image, with arm flung wide,
Sat on his brazen horse astride.[3]
And now Evgeny, with a shiver
Of terror, felt his reason clear.
He knew the place, for it was here
The flood had gamboled, here the river
Had surged; here, rioting in their wrath,
The wicked waves had swept a path
And with their tumult had surrounded
Evgeny, lions, square, – and Him
Who, moveless and aloft and dim,
Our city by the sea had founded,
Whose will was Fate. Appalling there
He sat begirt with and air.
What thoughts engrave his blow! What hidden
Power and authority he claims!
What fire in yonder charger flames!
Proud charger, whither art thou ridden,
Where leanest thou? And where, on whom,
Wilt plants thy hoof? – Ah, lord of doom
And potentate, ‘twas thus, appearing
Above the void, and in thy hold
A curb of iron, thou sat’st of old
O’er Russian, on her haunches rearing!
About the Image, at its base,
Poor mad Evgeny circled, straining
His wild gaze upward at the face
That once o’er half the world was reigning.
His eye was dimmed, cramped was his breast,
His brow on the cold grill was pressed,
While through his heart a flame was creeping
And in his veins the blood was leaping.
He halted sullenly beneath
The haughty Image, clenched his teeth
And clasped his hands, as though some devil
Possessed him, some dark, power of evil,
And shuddered, whispering angrily,
“Ay, architect, with thy creation
Of marvels… Ah, beware of me!”
And then, in wild precipitation
He fled.
For now he seemed to see
The awful Emperor, quietly,
With momentary anger burning,
His visage to Evgeny turning!
And rushing through the empty square,
He hears behind him as it were
Thunders that rattle in a chorus,
A gallop ponderous, sonorous,
That shakes the pavement. At full height,
Illumined by the pale moonlight,
With arm outflung, behind him riding
See, the bronze horseman comes, bestriding
The charger, clanging in his flight.
All night the madman flees; no matter
Where he may wander at his will,
Hard on his track with heavy clatter
There the bronze horseman gallops still.
Thereafter, whensoever straying
Across that square Evgeny went
By chance, his face was still betraying
Disturbance and bewilderment.
As though to ease a heart tormented
His hand upon it he would clap
In haste, put off his shabby cap,
And never raise his eyes demented,
And seek some byway unfrequented.
A little island lies in view
Along the shore; and here, belated,
Sometimes with nets a fisher-crew
Will moor and cook their long awaited
And meagre supper. Hither too
Some civil servant, idly floating,
Will come upon a Sunday, boating.
That isle is desolate and bare;
No blade of grass springs anywhere.
Once the great flood has sported, driving
The frail hut thither. Long surviving,
It floated on the water there
Like some black bush. A vessel plying
Bore it, last spring, upon her deck.
They found it empty, all the wreck;
And also, cold and dead and lying
Upon the threshold, they had found
My crazy hero. In the ground
His poor cold body there they hurried,
And left it to God’s mercy, buried.
Ruslan and Ludmila
Dedication
For you, queens of my soul, my treasured
Young beauties, for your sake did I
Devote my golden hours of leisure
To writing down, I’ll not deny,
With faithful hand of long past ages
The whispered fables… Take them, pray,
Accept these