Selected Poetry (Penguin) Read online

He wakes, his senses in confusion …

  But all around is quiet still;

  The marble-bedded fountains trill,

  270And, boon companion to the rose,

  The nightingale makes darkness peal;

  At last the eunuch finds repose,

  And once again his tired eyes close.

  Those splendours of the Eastern night

  That give the Mussulman delight

  And make the fleeting hours the fewer!

  His house’s open luxury,

  His garden’s magical allure,

  His harem solid and secure

  280Beneath the moon’s serenity,

  Alive with murmured confidences

  And inspiration of the senses!

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

  Among the women one, awake,

  Sat up and, with the lightest breath,

  Rose from her bed, began to walk

  The darkness with the softest step …

  Before her on the threshold stretched

  The grizzled eunuch in a doze,

  Menacing still in his repose –

  290His baleful heart would never rest!

  But she was past him like a ghost.

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

  Her walk was brought soon to a halt

  Before a door; then what surprise

  When, trembling, she drew back the bolt

  To see what lay before her eyes …

  An inner dread pervaded her.

  An icon-light’s sad lonely flare

  Played on the pure and simple face

  And holy symbol of the cross.

  300O Georgian maid! The scene you see

  Is native to your very soul,

  To your forsaken self it all

  Speaks of the things that used to be. –

  Before her, peaceful as a child,

  The princess lay; a virgin dream

  Brightened her cheek where tears had been

  And warmed it to a gentle smile:

  Thus the moon lights up a flower

  Left hanging heavy from a shower.

  310It seemed, an angel sent from heaven

  Not long ago alighting there

  Had lain to rest with many a tear

  For that poor prisoner of the harem.

  Zarema, what is this despair?

  With burning breast and breath held tight

  She fell upon her knees, and cried:

  ‘Take pity on me, and hear my prayer …!’

  Her passionate entreaty broke

  Upon the maiden’s sleep; she woke.

  320And there before her frightened eyes –

  A stranger down upon her knees;

  With trembling hand she helped her rise,

  Then said, a little more at ease:

  ‘Who are you? … In the night, so late

  And quite alone – Why have you come?’

  ‘Help me; in my unlucky fate

  One hope is left me – only one …

  Long did I live a life of bliss, and

  Every day was free from care,

  330Happiness was everywhere …

  Now I can only die here. Listen.

  ‘The land where I was born is far

  Far away … but to this day

  Nothing can destroy or mar

  The pictures in my memory.

  Mountains rising in the sky,

  Hot alpine streams that never dry,

  Impenetrable oaks and bays,

  Other laws and other ways;

  340But in what circumstance or woe

  I left my home I do not know;

  All I remember is the sea,

  A man high up above the sails …

  And after that, no griefs or ills

  Ever came to trouble me.

  I blossomed in tranquillity;

  Long did I keep myself apart;

  I waited in the harem’s shade.

  I found the yearning of my heart

  350Fulfilled at last. Girey had stayed

  His hand from bloody war, to cease

  His fearsome raids and turn to peace,

  And see his beauties didn’t fade.

  Before him, fearfully in line,

  We waited. Then his radiant gaze

  Lighted on me; no word of praise,

  He called me to him … From that time

  We breathed unclouded ecstasy;

  No doubt, or spite, or jealousy

  360Troubled either him or me.

  Mariya! You appeared before him …

  At once you bore his soul away,

  And then how many times I saw him

  Consumed by treacherous thoughts – Girey

  Shuts his ears to my reproaches;

  He finds the heart’s groans wearisome;

  Those feelings, confidences, touches

  We once exchanged – now he knows none.

  You are incapable of wrong;

  370I can lay no blame on you …

  I am beautiful; among

  All others here, no one but you

  Can rival me; but I was born

  For passion, not your kind of love:

  Then why disturb a helpless heart

  With your impassive grace? Enough!

  I am the one he’s set apart;

  Still I feel his burning kisses

  And hear his awe-inspiring vows,

  380All his thoughts and all his wishes

  Shared with me in precious hours;

  I shall die if he betrays me …

  Weeping on my knees before you

  I don’t accuse you, I implore you –

  Give me back my joy, and raise me

  From my knees to be Girey’s:

  For he is mine; you blind his eyes.

  Disdain him, beg him, bore him, puzzle him,

  Employ whatever means you can;

  390Swear … (of course I am a Muslim,

  Like all the captives of the Khan,

  Although my faith was once another,

  And that one, taught me by my mother,

  Was yours) … An oath then; don’t abuse it:

  Return Zarema to Girey …

  I have a dagger, I can use it

  In my own Caucasian way.’

  And on the instant she was gone.

  The princess dared not follow her.

  400The language of tormenting passion

  Was alien to her, but she heard

  The murderous accents of obsession.

  Where were the prayers and words to aid her

  After such humiliation?

  What was the best that could await her?

  Lost wasted bloom, the sorry station

  Of a neglected concubine?

  If Khan Girey – O God! – forgot

  His captive beauty at her shrine

  410For ever – or one day cut short

  The wretched years of her decline?

  Then with what delight Mariya

  Would take her leave of worldly strife!

  The dearest moments of her life

  Were over, nothing would be dearer!

  What was there left for her to do,

  Lost in the wasteland of this world?

  Mariya’s time had come below;

  The heavens smiled, and from her woe

  420To peace eternal she was called.

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

  Mariya gone, the days sped by.

  At rest she would forever lie.

  The long-awaited world she lit

  As, angel-like, she entered it.

  What brought her life to its sad close?

  Despair consuming her heart’s core?

  Some sickness? … Something else? Who knows?

  Gentle Mariya was no more!

  The gloomy palace was forlorn;

  430Girey was absent; now he made,

  With his new-gathered Tatar horde,

  Many a further deadly
raid.

  Black of brow, athirst for blood,

  He rode the battle’s stormy flood,

  But in his inmost heart the flame

  Of other feelings burned its pain.

  From time to time, his sabre raised,

  He checked his sweep and seemed quite dazed,

  Gazing at nothing, motionless;

  440Then paled – was he benumbed by fears? –

  And whispered something none could guess;

  His cheek would show hot sudden tears.

  The harem is without its khan,

  Languishing in sad neglect;

  The eyes that constantly suspect

  Still oversee with cold command

  Those fading maidens, and among them

  Long has the Georgian been unseen:

  The silent guardians of the harem

  450Have plunged her in the deepest stream;

  Her torment ceased at just the time

  The princess met her sudden end;

  Whatever could have been her crime,

  Fearful was the punishment! –

  Giving up his ravages

  Through peaceful Russian villages

  And lands below the Caucasus,

  The Khan returned to the Crimea,

  And to the memory of Mariya,

  460Never ceasing to adore her,

  He had a marble fountain raised

  In a remote and tranquil corner.

  Over it, high in a recess,

  A cross was given pride of place

  Above the Muslim moon (of course,

  A solecism one ignores);

  Also an epigraph – the years

  Have not erased it from this marvel:

  The water warbling over marble

  470Falls on the script in cooling tears,

  And they will flow for evermore.

  Thus a grieving mother weeps

  Over a son who fell in war.

  There a passing maiden keeps

  Acquaintance with the ways of old;

  A spot on which grief never sleeps –

  The Fount of Tears, it is now called.

  Cut off from all society,

  For northern friends and feasts I long;

  480I’ve visited Bakhchisaray,

  Its palace in oblivion.

  Along the silent passageways

  I’ve wandered where the Tatar scourge

  Was wont to feast and take his ease,

  Returned from raids, campaigns and such.

  And there still, all combines to please

  Throughout the empty courts and halls;

  The waters run and roses glow,

  And everywhere vines thickly grow,

  490And gold gleams bright upon the walls.

  There I’ve seen many a latticed chamber

  Where, in the springtime of their years,

  Fingering rosaries of amber,

  The women sighed and hid their tears.

  I’ve seen the graveyard of the khans;

  Those columns, for each potentate,

  Topped with their spiral marble crowns,

  Seemed the ordinance of fate.

  The khans – the harem and its guard –

  500Where were they? All was silent, sad,

  All changed … But no, it wasn’t that

  That in this moment filled my heart:

  The roses’ breath and fountains’ spill

  Had led me to forget all else,

  And all at once my heightened pulse

  Leapt with a mysterious thrill:

  A shade – a maiden passed before me!

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

  My friends, whose image did I see?

  Whose shade pursued and haunted me,

  510So boldly, ineluctably?

  Was it Mariya’s gentle soul

  Or did Zarema hurry by,

  Consumed with furious jealousy,

  Alone in an abandoned hall?

  Other eyes now come to mind,

  Beauty belonging to this world,

  And in my banishment I pine,

  A living form I long to hold …

  Madman, no more! You’ve long since paid

  520Your tribute to unhappy love,

  Do not renew vain vows you’ve made,

  And dreams on which you’ve fed enough –

  Come to your senses: will you long

  Embrace your chains, poor prisoner,

  And on your unembarrassed lyre

  Announce your madness to the throng?

  Peace and the Muses’ devotee

  Am I: forgetting love and fame,

  Soon, O Salgir, I shall be free

  530And happy on your shores again!

  And I shall see those once-dear slopes

  Arise from memory’s fond haze;

  As the Crimean coastline swoops

  The sea will cheer my hungry gaze.

  Enchanted region! Living dream!

  The eye’s delight – whether you choose

  The vineyards’ ruby-amber gleam,

  Or hills and woods of all the hues,

  Or poplars sheltering a stream …

  540All beckons to the traveller

  When at the quiet morning hour

  He takes an upland path to urge

  His old mount on with bridle slack,

  And there before him, forth and back

  The greening waters swell and surge

  Beneath the crags of Ayu-Dag.

  1823

  The Gypsies

  The transitional character of this poem in Pushkin’s development may explain some hesitation on his part in the manner and timing of its publication. He delayed the first edition in its entirety for more than two years; it appeared in a small paperbound book on its own in 1827, after his return from exile, without his name as author and with a note on the cover that it had been written in 1824. Pushkin’s farewell to Romanticism is enacted in the poem itself, which is a new beginning in the genre of the poema. In his Romantic quest for ‘freedom’ from the shackles of urban life, Aleko doesn’t Romantically melt into gypsy society and relish its free-and-easy values; his unattached vagueness is set amid the ever-active, vibrant day-to-day life of the ‘migratory horde’ (line 18). His behaviour is sharply at odds with the values of the gypsy community that takes him in; this is reflected in the language of the narrative and the individual voices of Aleko, the old gypsy and his daughter, and it leads to tragedy.

  The Gypsies has been the subject of much debate among Russian thinkers and critics, Aleko being seen as a new kind of character in Russian literature, representing the played-out values of Enlightenment civilisation in contrast to those of primal, innocent, rural society (see more on this in the Introduction under ‘Narrative Poems’). Dostoyevsky put Aleko and Onegin at the centre of his famous ‘Pushkin speech’ of 1880, considering Aleko ‘a stranger in his own land’ and representative of the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia cut off from the people.

  In this poem, the flexibility of Pushkin’s favourite iambic tetrameter, which is kept in the translation, makes it the ideal vehicle for conveying dramatic dialogue and stylistic contrast.

  A noisy band of gypsies roams

  Through Bessarabia far and wide.

  Tonight their worn and tattered homes

  Are pitched above the riverside.

  Joyful their encampment feels,

  Carefree their sleep beneath the skies,

  Like freedom; screened by wagon wheels

  Half overspread with canopies

  A fire burns bright; a family

  10Prepares its supper; on the lea

  The horses graze; a bear lies free

  Behind a tent. On every side

  Life sounds: the cares of families thinking

  Of next day’s short and early ride,

  The cries of children, women singing,

  And the travelling anvil ringing.

  But now the hush of slumber drops
r />   Upon the migratory horde,

  And in the steppe’s vast solitude

  20Neighs of horses, barks of dogs

  Are all the sounds that can be heard.

  Everywhere the fires have died;

  All is tranquil, and the moon,

  High up in the heavens alone,

  Shines down upon the quiet site.

  Inside his tent an old man sits,

  Warmed by the lingering glow of ashes,

  And doesn’t sleep; instead he watches

  The far expanses wrapped in mists.

  30Somewhere on the lonely steppe

  His daughter is off wandering; she

  Enjoys a life of liberty,

  She will be back; but night has crept

  Apace, and in a little time

  The moonlight will not be so bold,

  And of Zemfira not a sign;

  The old man’s meagre meal is cold.

  But here she comes, and following her

  A youth no one has seen before.

  40‘Father,’ declares the girl, ‘I found

  Our guest out there beside the mound;

  I’ve asked him in to stay with us.

  He wants to be a gypsy too;

  The law is after him, he says,

  But I shall love him and be true.

  Aleko is his name – I know

  He’ll go with me wherever I go.’

  OLD MAN

  I’ll be most glad if you will spend

  The night with us – or longer if

  50You wish, and share our food, our tent.

  Be one of us, and live our life –

  The threadbare freedom of the road.

  We’re off tomorrow with our load;

  Pick your trade if you’ve a flair:

  Singer, smith, or dance the bear.

  ALEKO

  I’ll stay with you.

  ZEMFIRA

  He shall be mine.

  No one shall take him from my bed …

  Out on the steppe tonight you’re blind:

  It’s crescent moon and it has set.

  60Sleep weighs heavy on my head …

  *

  Day comes. The sun shows through the mist.

  The old man takes the morning air;

  ‘Zemfira, wake! Your day is fair –

  Children, leave your couch of bliss!’

  People pour forth noisily;

  Tents are struck, and presently

  The carts move off as one. Now see,

  The throng of gypsies fills the plain:

  In baskets slung across their backs

  70Donkeys carry children playing;

  Closely following in their tracks

  Men, wives, girls, brothers, all together,

  Young and old; din everywhere,

  Songs, the roaring of the bear,

  The jingling of its iron tether,