Selected Poetry (Penguin) Read online

  The universal foe upon their horns

  And bore him to the lord of all damnation,

  And Satan rose with glee on his countenance

  And with his kiss burned through and through the lips

  10That on the night of the betrayal kissed Christ.

  1836

  Secular Power

  When the great event was nearing its fulfilment,

  And godhead was dying in torment on the Cross,

  Then, on either side of the life-giving tree,

  Mary the sinner and the Blessed Virgin

  Stood […] two […] women,

  Each of them plunged in immeasurable sorrow.

  But now, at the foot of the Holy Cross, as if

  At the portal of the city governor’s house,

  We see, in place of those two blessed women,

  10Two menacing sentries in shakos, armed with rifles.

  Tell me, why has this guard been posted here?

  Is the Crucifixion now state property,

  Are you afraid of thieves, or is it mice?

  Or do you think you enhance the King of Kings?

  Or, with your mighty guardianship, you save

  Our Lord, wearing his plaited crown of thorns,

  Christ who offered his flesh obediently

  To his torturers’ scourges and their nails and spear?

  Or you fear the rabble might offend the One

  20Whose death redeemed the entire tribe of Adam,

  And to spare the strolling gentlefolk from jostling,

  You would bar the common people from this place?

  1836

  When, alone with my thoughts, I leave the city,

  And walk and reach the public cemetery,

  The endless rows of ornamental tombs

  Above the city’s dead, the grilles and columns

  All densely pressed together in the marsh

  Like guests at some sparse table in a crush;

  Tradesmen’s and state employees’ mausoleums,

  Cheap-carved, naïve conceptions, with their themes

  Inscribed on them in prose and verse – the virtues,

  10The ranks, the years of dedicated service;

  Some cuckold’s widow’s amour-laden grief,

  A pedestal left urnless by a thief,

  Many a yawning slippery, fresh-dug burrow

  Awaiting its new tenant on the morrow –

  All this brings troubled notions to my mind,

  Malevolent despair comes over me. I want

  To spit and run away …

  I love, however,

  To visit, on a quiet autumn evening,

  A village’s ancestral cemetery;

  20Its dead repose with proper dignity,

  Its unembellished graves are given space,

  No pale nocturnal thief disturbs their peace;

  Villagers sigh a prayer whenever they pass

  The ancient headstones grown with yellow moss;

  Instead of petty pyramids and vases,

  Noseless heroes and dishevelled graces,

  A broad oak stands above the solemn graves,

  Swaying and murmuring …

  1836

  Exegi monumentum.

  I have made myself, but not with hands, a monument;

  The people’s path to it will not be overgrown;

  My monument’s indomitable summit rises

  Higher than Alexander’s Column.

  Not all of me shall die – for in my cherished lyre

  My soul shall outlive my dust, it shall escape decay –

  In the sublunary world my fame shall be unending

  As long as a single poet holds sway.

  And word of me shall spread through all the Russian lands,

  10My name shall be pronounced in all its living tongues,

  By the proud Slav, the Finn, the Kalmuck of the steppes,

  And the unbiddable Tungùs.

  Long will there be a place for me in people’s hearts,

  Because my lyre awoke warm-hearted sentiments,

  Because in my harsh age I sang of Liberty,

  And asked, for the fallen, lenience.

  O my Muse, pay all respect to the divine,

  To praise and calumny in equal share be cool,

  Have no fear of insult, seek no laurel-crown,

  20And do not argue with a fool.

  1836

  II

  * * *

  NARRATIVE POEMS

  (POEMY)

  The Fountain of Bakhchisaray

  On the journey to his southern exile in 1820, Pushkin visited the town of Bakhchisaray in southern Crimea and the ruined palace of the Crimean khanate there, with its famous marble fountain that had been built by one of the last rulers of the three-hundred-year-old Girey dynasty to the memory of his favourite concubine after her early death. Pushkin was moved by the legend of rivalry between Girey’s two favourite concubines to write this, his first serious narrative poem, set in the eighteenth century during ongoing hostilities between the Crimean Tatars and the Poles, a period that had ended in 1783 with Russia’s annexation of the Crimean khanate. The Crimean Tatars were one of the major population groups that had settled in Central Asia and eastern Europe in the wake of the invading warriors from the East from the thirteenth century onwards.

  Written between 1821 and 1823, this poem established Pushkin’s reputation. It was first published in 1824; a second, illustrated edition followed in 1827 and a third in 1830. The appeal to its first readers of its harmonious musicality and rich visual imagery, which Pushkin never repeated in such sustained flow, retains all its force today, as does the vivid recreation of the daily life of the khan’s harem. Some elements of the action and of the main characters are influenced by Byron’s The Corsair (1814). The poem’s most developed character is the fiery Georgian, Zarema, who remembers her past life before being captured and voices her present aspirations in a quasi-dramatic monologue.

  Pushkin’s metre is his favourite iambic tetrameter, kept in this translation.

  Many have visited this fountain, as I have; but some are no more, and others are far away.

  SAADI

  With hooded eye sat Khan Girey;

  The amber smoked between his lips;

  His servile court in mute array

  Watched as he pondered awesome deeps.

  None in his palace dared give tongue;

  All sought to read, in reverence,

  The signs of grief and gall that hung

  Upon his sombre countenance.

  At last the haughty potentate

  10Motioned from his chair of state,

  And all departed with a bow.

  In his secluded chambers now

  Sighs more freely leave his breast,

  And on his formidable brow

  Deeper the marks of his unrest.

  Thus gathering stormclouds you may trace

  Upon the water’s rippled face.

  What is he thinking hour by hour?

  What agitates his lordly soul?

  20Will he attack the northern power,

  Issue his edicts to the Pole,

  Repay a bloody act with blood?

  Has he discovered some dark plot?

  Is he afraid of wild Caucasians,

  Or treacherous Genoa’s machinations?

  No, his fearsome sword and shield

  Now rest, the first among his passions

  No more the glory of the field.

  Does he see deception stain

  30His favourite and most precious bower?

  Has the queen of his domain

  Bestowed her heart upon a giaour?

  No, for the wives Girey acquires

  Do not dare to have desires;

  They bloom in cheerless lassitude,

  In boredom’s bosom, never free

  From their strict guard’s all-seeing eye,

  Never found in roving mood.

  In captive perpetuity

 
; 40Their secret beauties are held fast;

  Thus the blooms of Araby

  Will flourish under hothouse glass.

  In undisturbed monotony

  They pass their shaded lives, and see

  The days, the months and seasons go,

  And youthful charms, and love, go too.

  Each dawning brings the same again;

  How slow the passing of the hours,

  How rare is pleasure in these bowers;

  50Indolence rules the whole domain.

  From time to time the captive women,

  In search of some relief from gloom,

  Change into resplendent dress,

  Play games, find subjects to discuss,

  Or walk about in fine array,

  And following the limpid course

  Of sounding fountains, make their way

  Towards the shade of sycamores.

  Among them stalks a eunuch; none

  60Escapes his watchful scrutiny;

  His cruel, suspicious ear and eye

  At all times follow everyone.

  Thus is he able to maintain

  His regimen. To please his khan

  Is law to him; more sacred than

  The holy law of the Koran.

  His soul does not aspire to love;

  Statue-like, he is above

  Bitterness, disrespectful jokes,

  70Pranks and hoaxes unrestrained,

  Outright hatred, scorn, reproach,

  Shy glance, mute sigh and languid plaint.

  He knows the female character,

  Its out-and-out duplicity,

  Both captive and at liberty:

  The gentle smile, the fearful tear –

  None has any hold on him,

  For he believes in none of them.

  When the young harem go to bathe,

  80With loosened hair, on summer days,

  The magic of their youthful beauty

  Freshened in a flowing spring,

  Their guard, forgotten at his duty,

  Observes his charges frolicking;

  He is indifferent to that sight –

  The unveiled sirens of the harem;

  He wanders in the depths of night

  Without disturbance or alarum,

  Stepping over soft-laid floors,

  90Making his way through yielding doors;

  He moves from one bed to the next

  Meticulously, to inspect

  The wives in their secluded sleep,

  The breathing, murmurs, sighs of each,

  The lightest stir – on all of which

  A note he will be sure to keep;

  And woe to her who in her dream

  Whispers an unfamiliar name

  Or touches, with a friend, a theme

  100Only to be heard with shame!

  Why is Girey so sunk in grief,

  The hookah smokeless in his hands?

  Outside his door with bated breath,

  Motionless, the eunuch stands.

  At last the Khan is on his feet

  And through the door; he silently

  Enters the wives’ abode to greet

  His erstwhile favourite company.

  Beside a marbled pool the Khan’s pets,

  110Gathered round in carefree throng

  Reclining on their silken carpets,

  Have waited for him all day long,

  Watching the depths in childlike glee

  As fish swim round there endlessly,

  The harem’s favourite stratagem –

  Dropping gold earrings down on them.

  Meanwhile the servant maidens bring

  Sherbet of their especial choice,

  And in one bright, melodious voice

  120The harem all begin to sing:

  ‘The heavens bring our existence

  Catastrophes and tears:

  Blest is the sage seeing Mecca

  In his sad last years.

  ‘Blest is the brave who honours

  The Danube when he dies:

  They will make him welcome,

  The maids of Paradise.

  ‘And blest, O our Zarema,

  130The ruler who well knows

  Quietness and perfection

  And tends you like the rose.’

  All sing their pride and joy, all name her;

  But where is she, where is Zarema? –

  Alas, she blankly, palely gazes

  And does not listen to her praises,

  Her head hung low and all forlorn,

  Crushed like a palm-tree in a storm;

  Nothing and nobody can cheer her;

  140No longer will Girey come near her.

  Too well she knows she is betrayed! …

  But who excels you, Georgian maid?

  Your braided brow so lily-white,

  Eyes bright as day and dark as night:

  Whose voice can best of all express

  The sudden surging of desire?

  Who can tell of lips that kiss

  Like yours, with such consuming fire?

  How can the heart once filled with you

  150Beat for other beauties too?

  Girey, however, coldly cruel,

  Has now cast off this precious jewel,

  Has spent, allowing no intrusion,

  His nights alone and scarcely slept

  In all the time that he has kept

  A Polish princess in seclusion.

  The young Mariya first espied

  Skies strange to her not long ago;

  Her home had seen her beauty grow,

  160She was her father’s chief delight.

  The old man only cared that she

  Should have contentment come her way,

  And that her early years should be

  Unclouded as a summer’s day,

  And that the slightest griefs should roll

  Out of her ken, not bruise her soul;

  And that, her time once come to wed,

  She should look fondly back upon

  Her joyful days of maidenhood

  170As some sweet dream a moment gone.

  Her every attribute had charm:

  Her eyes of pleading blue, her swift

  And graceful movements, all with calm

  Demeanour; nature’s every gift,

  Augmented and adorned by art –

  The gentle magic of her harp

  Enchanted at her father’s feasts.

  The rich and powerful of the land

  Contended for Mariya’s hand,

  180Striplings who glimpsed her yearned for trysts.

  But in the quietness of her soul

  She never knew of love at all;

  Her leisured hours were always spent

  Sequestered in her father’s hall

  At simple pastimes with a friend.

  How long is it since Tatar horse

  Poured in their remorseless course

  Through Poland? Harvests never fed

  Their fires with such a lightning spread:

  190The fertile land is ruined by war,

  The peaceful pastimes are now gone,

  The villages and groves forlorn;

  The glorious castle is quite bare,

  And silent is Mariya’s nest …

  In the churchyard at their rest

  Lie honoured bones; with them, emblazed

  With princely coronet and crest,

  Another gravestone has been raised …

  The father buried, daughter taken,

  200An idle, parsimonious heir

  Watches over devastation

  And irreversible despair.

  The palace of Bakhchisaray

  It is conceals the young princess,

  And there she weeps and grieves, alas

  And fades; it seems she will soon die.

  And now the Khan too knows distress –

  Her tears and moans unsettle him,

  Disturb the sleep he briefly snatches;


  210At her despair Girey relaxes

  His harem’s rigorous regime.

  The comfortless custodian

  No longer comes with silent tread

  As she slumbers on her bed

  To rouse her with officious hand;

  No longer does the eunuch dare

  Humiliate her with a stare.

  Mariya, tended by a slave,

  Goes to a secret place to bathe;

  220The Khan himself will not intrude

  Upon her sorrowful retreat;

  He lets her live in solitude

  In one far spot where no paths meet:

  And some consider that hushed place

  The precinct of no mortal one.

  There day and night a lamp burns on

  Before the blessed countenance,

  A comfort to the yearning soul;

  And in that corner set apart

  230Hope dwells with quiet faith; and all

  Brings closer to the humble heart

  A realm of purity unmarred;

  There the maiden sheds her tears,

  Away from envious companions;

  And while the rest devote their hours

  To careless luxury and dalliance,

  In the still refuge which is hers

  A secret shrine is strictly kept.

  Subject no more to alien pressure

  240Or victim to the world of pleasure,

  Her heart preserves its sacred pledge

  To the most merciful divine …

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Night has fallen; darkness veils

  Crimea’s pleasant fields; far off

  I hear the song of nightingales,

  And scents from blooming thickets waft;

  Behind its troupe of stars the moon

  Rises to a cloudless height,

  And hills and vales and woods are soon

  250Laid open in its gentle light.

  White-shrouded shadows bring to life

  The alleys of Bakhchisaray;

  From house to house a Tatar wife

  Calls in to chat about the day.

  The palace slumbers; all is quiet,

  At rest upon the lap of languor;

  Nothing disturbs the peace of night.

  The guard, alert for any sign of danger,

  Something in some way not quite right,

  260Has finished his nocturnal round;

  For some hours rest will not be found

  For him; through fitful sleep he fears

  Betrayal, and he thinks he hears

  A rustling here, a whispering there;

  At night all sounds will give illusion.

  Straining a bewildered ear