Selected Poetry (Penguin) Read online

  25. Among the first to take Pushkin’s Shade of Barkov seriously was Anthony Cross (‘Pushkin’s Bawdy; or, Notes from the Literary Underground’, Russian Literature Triquarterly, vol. 10 (1974), pp. 203–36).

  26. Alyssa Dinega Gillespie, ‘Bawdy and Soul: Pushkin’s Poetics of Obscenity’, in id. (ed.), Taboo Pushkin: Topics, Texts, Interpretations (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), pp. 185–223.

  27. Note unpublished in Pushkin’s lifetime. Quoted in Wolff, p. 277.

  28. I. I. Vol’pert (Moscow: The Languages of Russian Culture, 1998), quoted in Gillespie, p. 59.

  29. Draft note written in 1830, unpublished in Pushkin’s lifetime. Quoted in Wolff, p. 269.

  30. Draft essay ‘On Classical and Romantic Poetry’ written in 1825. Translation in ibid., p. 127.

  31. Explored by A. D. P. Briggs in an essay, ‘Did Carmen Come from Russia?’, in the programme for an English National Opera production of Carmen, 1995–6.

  32. A posthumous note on Count Nulin quoted in Wolff, pp. 272–3.

  33. Nepomnyashchy, p. 116.

  34. Yury Lotman, Stat’i i zametki [Articles and Notes] (Moscow: Vagrius, 2008), back cover.

  I

  * * *

  LYRIC POEMS

  St Petersburg, 1814–20

  To a Young Beauty who has Taken Snuff

  How can this be? Not roses, Cupid’s fancy,

  Tulips at their proud best,

  Fragrant jasmine, or lily of the valley,

  Upon your marble breast –

  Oh Clementina, how perverse you are …

  You used to sniff the morning bloom’s aroma –

  Now it’s that green weed

  Which fashion’s restless need

  Has artfully transformed to fine grey powder!

  10Let some Marburg professor with snowy hair,

  Hunched in his high old chair,

  His awesome mind applied to Latin prose,

  Take, in a coughing fit, his panacea

  And stuff it up his venerable nose;

  Let some young moustachioed dragoon

  Viewing the crimson dawn,

  Still dreaming, fill his room

  With thick grey smoke from his beloved meerschaum;

  Let some old beauty who has lost her bloom,

  20Retired from love, forsaken by the graces,

  Her body quite without unwrinkled places –

  All she has left propped up with stays and trusses –

  Let her pray, and yawn, and huff

  And find, in one good pinch, unfailing respite; –

  But if, my beauty! … you are so fond of it …

  If I – the power of fancy! – were the stuff,

  And your snuffbox closed on me …

  Then – you took a pinch of me

  In those soft fingers – rapture! Down I’d spill

  30Inside your silken dress,

  Over your smooth white breast,

  I’d spill and spill until …

  But no, an empty dream. That happiness

  Isn’t for me. Fate is unkind. Enough!

  Oh, if only I could be that snuff!

  1814

  The Rose

  Where is our rose,

  Friends all forlorn?

  Faded, the rose,

  Child of the morn.

  Do not say:

  So youth must pass!

  Do not say:

  … And happiness!

  Say to the flower:

  10Ah, what a pity,

  Your time is over!

  And show us the lily.

  1815

  To Baroness M. A. Delvig

  I am in my seventeenth year, and you are eight.

  Some time ago I was eight years old myself;

  That time has long since passed. It is my fate,

  It seems, to be a poet, so God help!

  You can’t take back what you’ve already had,

  I am already old, and I admit it.

  Belief is all we have that can defend us.

  You’re now a child, like Cupid, and as pretty –

  When you have got to my age, you’ll be Venus.

  10And if by then I haven’t died,

  By the almighty will of Zeus,

  And if I’m able still to write –

  I’ll write you, my dear baroness,

  A madrigal in Latin taste:

  It will astound, but not by art –

  Though it will not abound in praise,

  It will be written from the heart!

  I’ll write: ‘In honour of those eyes,

  O baroness, and all the balls

  20At which we gazed on you with sighs:

  One glance, I beg you, from those eyes

  For all my previous madrigals.’

  And when young Cupid and great Hymen

  In my adorable Mariya

  Both greet a beautiful young woman –

  Shall I, concluding my career,

  Succeed with an epithalamion?

  1815

  To Princess V. M. Volkonskaya

  Lady, a passing glance from Adam

  Will place you firmly on the shelf;

  Or you’ll be taken for a madam –

  But God no, not the tart herself.

  1816

  The Singer

  Did you hear, from distant groves at night,

  The singer of love, the singer of despair?

  And early on the morning air

  The sad notes of his pipe –

  Ah, did you hear him?

  Did you see, in the shadows of the forest,

  The singer of love, the singer of despair?

  His laden smile and lingering tear,

  His look of quiet unrest –

  10Ah, did you see him?

  Did you sigh when you heard his gentle voice,

  The singer of love, the singer of despair?

  And when you saw him passing near

  And met his waning gaze –

  Ah, did you sigh for him?

  1816

  The Window

  The lone moon picked the path from shadow;

  I sat alone and still;

  I saw a maiden at her window,

  The breaths she drew were chill;

  She watched in fearful expectation

  The path below the hill.

  Then, ‘Here I am!’ I heard the whisper.

  With trembling hand the maid,

  Just as the moon was lost in darkness,

  10Opened the pane. I sighed:

  ‘There’s happiness! When will a window

  Open for me one night?’

  1816

  Liberty

  An Ode

  Away now, limp Cytherean muse,

  I order you to flee!

  Come to me, you who menace tsars,

  Proud bard of Liberty!

  Come, tear the garland from my head

  And drown my minstrelsy …

  I wish to scourge the vice on thrones

  And sing of Liberty.

  Put me on the noble path

  10Of that immortal Gaul

  Whom you inspired to valiant hymns

  In days of gloire and moil!

  Tremble, tyrants of the world,

  Alumni of crude Fate!

  And all you slaves, take courage, hearken,

  Rise from your abject state!

  Alas, as far as eyes can see

  They light on chains and taws,

  On tears of helplessness and bondage,

  20On shameful, deadly laws;

  Unrighteous Power has been imposed,

  It thrives on superstition,

  The cruel soul of Slavery

  And Fame’s bloodthirsty passion.

  The sovereign only spares his people

  A life of misery

  Where mighty laws are firmly linked

  With sacred Liberty;

  And where a solid shield protects

  30All citizens alike
,

  The sword is held in balanced hand

  Wherever it may strike,

  Where, from the highest in the land

  At but a single beck,

  Crime receives the just response

  No greed or threat can check.

  Rulers! You owe your crown and throne

  To Law, not Nature: though

  You stand higher than the people,

  40Higher still stands Law.

  And woe betide the sorry peoples

  Who carelessly ignore

  The warning signs where ruled or rulers

  Themselves command the Law!

  I call you first of all to witness,

  O martyr of the Terror,

  You who laid down your royal head

  For many a forebear’s error.

  Up mounts King Louis to his death

  50For all posterity;

  He bends his decrowned head upon

  The block of Perfidy.

  Silent the Law, and silent people

  Watch as the vile axe falls …

  Thereupon the evil purple

  Lies on the new-chained Gauls.

  You and your throne I deeply loathe,

  Autocratic Fiend!

  Unmercifully I await

  60Your and your children’s end.

  Clearly marked upon your brow

  The people read your curse,

  Bane of the world and shame of nature,

  Reproach to God on earth!

  The brilliant evening star shines down

  Above dark Neva’s deeps,

  And while the unencumbered head

  Into slumber slips,

  The pensive singer turns his gaze

  70On mist-enshrouded gloom,

  A palace empty and abandoned –

  Its tyrant in the tomb –

  And hears the fateful voice of Clio

  Inside that fateful tower,

  Before his very eyes he sees

  Caligula’s last hour,

  Before him, with their ribboned honours,

  Drunk on wine and spite,

  With daring faces, fearful hearts,

  80The murderers in the night.

  The watch is silent at his post,

  The bridge is promptly down,

  A hired hand makes sure the gate

  Draws back without a sound …

  O shame! O horror of our times!

  Wild beasts, the janissaries

  Burst in, they deal inglorious blows …

  The anointed miscreant dies.

  Learn then, rulers of the world:

  90No dungeon, no reward,

  No piety, no punishment

  Can be your faithful guard.

  But if you are the first to bow

  Before the trusted Law,

  The People’s peace and liberty

  Will keep your throne secure.

  1817

  To Chaadayev

  The falsities of love and hope,

  Of quiet glory, are outworn,

  Those fantasies of childish scope

  Have vanished like the mists of dawn;

  But still we burn with fierce obsession,

  Impatience overflows our soul;

  Beneath the yoke of dire oppression

  We hearken to our country’s call.

  In faith and torment we await

  10The sacred moment of our freedom,

  As lovers, languishing, await

  The longed-for moment of their meeting.

  And while we burn for liberty,

  And live for nobleness of mind,

  Let us create our legacy

  From passion of the highest kind!

  My friend, believe: the star of wonder

  Shall shine, the star of destiny;

  For Russia will awake from slumber,

  20And grave our names, once she has risen,

  Upon the shards of despotism!

  1818

  O. Masson

  Olga, child of Aphrodite,

  Olga, miracle of beauty,

  How you put the world to rights

  With your kisses and your slights!

  How you overwhelm the heart

  With voluptuous caress

  As the secret hour is set

  For seductive happiness.

  At the long-awaited hour

  10In a raging amorous fever

  Up we run and rap your door –

  As a hundred times before,

  We are met by your sly whisper

  And your sleepy maid’s perusal

  And the jibes of her refusal.

  In the name of zestful pleasure,

  Of priapic enterprise,

  Bliss and gold beyond the measure,

  And your captivating eyes –

  20Olga, priestess of the evening,

  Listen to our lovesick prayer:

  Night of rapture, of oblivion,

  Say you’ll grant us this for sure.

  1819

  A Good Revel

  How I love a good night’s revel,

  With merriment our president,

  And legislator of our table

  Liberty, my guide and friend,

  When cries of Drink up! often drown

  Our hoarsely shouted songs till dawn,

  And as our circle grows and grows

  The bottles stand in closer rows.

  1819

  Renaissance

  Some barbarous painter daubs his brush

  All over a perfect work of art,

  And by his senseless strokes it seems

  The picture is forever marred.

  But with the years the alien paint

  Falls off like worn-out scales; its essence

  Is now restored for us to see

  In all its first magnificence.

  So from my tried and weary soul

  10All delusions fall away,

  And in their place come earlier visions

  Belonging to a purer day.

  1819

  You and I

  You are rich and I am poor;

  I write verse and you write prose;

  Your complexion blooms and glows,

  Mine – I seem to haunt death’s door.

  Never having any cares,

  You live in a mighty palace;

  I, beset by woes and tears,

  Live my life upon a pallet.

  You eat sweetmeats every day,

  10Quaff down many a vintage – too

  Indolent at times to pay

  Nature its twice-daily due;

  Crusts and scraps and impure water,

  That’s the stuff on which I feed;

  Down a hundred stairs I clatter,

  Driven by the well-known need.

  You, with always slaves galore

  To serve your needs from head to toe,

  Wipe your plump posterior

  20With the best in calico;

  With my sinful rear the mode,

  How I wince, is quite another,

  What I use is rougher, tougher –

  Count Khvostòv’s most recent ode.

  1820

  To Yuryev

  The favourite of the city’s flighty

  And lover of great Aphrodite –

  My dear Adonis, try to bear

  Her passing slights – but don’t despair!

  She gave you all the charms of youth:

  That dark moustache, that lively eye,

  That smiling taciturnity …

  Dear friend, are these things not enough?

  A stranger to desire, you miss

  10The pleasure in a lover’s kiss;

  No matter – at our revelries,

  Our light Terpsichorean sport,

  The eye of every beauty flies

  To you, and pays you dreamy court.

  Alas! The language of the heart,

  Those sighs of inward eloquence,

  Must be, my friend, as music sweet

 
To self-enraptured nonchalance;

  You must be happy with your lot.

  20By contrast, I – eternal scapegrace,

  Ill-favoured scion of Negro race,

  Brought up in rude simplicity

  And never likely to expire

  For love – I please young beauty by

  The shameless rage of my desire;

  Thus, scarcely fathoming the matter,

  A flush arising in her cheeks,

  A nymph will sometimes quietly fix

  Her bashful gaze upon a satyr.

  1820

  Exile, 1820–26

  The light of day has faded,

  The dark blue sea is swallowed by the mists of night.

  Sing to me, sing to me, willing sail,

  Move beneath me, darkly brooding ocean.

  I see the far-off shore ahead,

  The enchanted regions of the midday lands;

  I yearn towards them, rapt in memories …

  Feelings are roused, and tears; my soul quickens,

  then cools;

  I am surrounded by familiar dreams,

  10And all the mad love of the past,

  All that I suffered, all that was dear to me,

  The cruel deceits of my desires and hopes …

  Sing to me, sing to me, willing sail,

  Move beneath me, darkly brooding ocean.

  Fly, my good ship, take me to unknown lands,

  Follow the whims of indiscriminate seas,

  But never back to those sad shores,

  My homeland, where first passions flamed,

  The gentle muses smiled to me in secret,

  20My youth was spent and lost in storms,

  Where light-winged joys betrayed my heart to

  suffering.

  In search of new experiences

  I have fled from you, the country of my birth,

  I have fled from you, the devotees of pleasure,

  The momentary friends of momentary youth;

  And you, my confidantes in aberration,

  To whom I sacrificed, indifferently, myself,

  Peace of mind and glory, life and liberty –

  You are forgotten too, my young betrayers,

  30Secret companions of my golden Spring,

  You are forgotten too … But love’s old wounds,

  The old deep wounds of the heart – nothing can

  heal …

  Sing to me, sing to me, willing sail,

  Move beneath me, darkly brooding ocean.