Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845. Various
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the Neva from afar.
The following lines (which are not without a kind of fantastic prettiness of their own) do not seen to need any remark or explanation, unless it be the circumstance of the poet's qualifying the sky of St Petersburg with the epithet of pale-green. It may be observed that this peculiar tint (exactly enough expressed by the adjective) has struck almost all the strangers who have visited the northern capital, and has been repeatedly noticed by travellers; as, for instance, Kohl, Custine, &c. &c. Our readers will find the singular colour of the St Petersburg atmosphere (particularly observable in the winter, or at night) very well described in Sir George Lefevre's amusing "Notes of a Travelling Physician." This greenish tint is as peculiar to the banks of the Neva, as is the reddish-black to the neighbourhood of Birmingham or the Potteries; or the yellowish-brown (in November—"let rude ears be absent!") to the environs of the Thames:—
Town of starving, town of splendour,
Dulness, pride, and slavery;
Skyey vault of pale-green tender,
Cold, and granite, and ennui!
With a pang, I say adieu t'ye
With a pang, though slight—for there
Trips the foot of one young beauty,
Waves one tress of golden hair.
In the short and rapid sketch of Púshkin's life and writings which will be found prefixed to this selection, we made particular mention of the strong impression produced upon the Russian public by the appearance of the noble lines addressed to the Sea. We beg to subjoin a translation of this short but vigorous poem, which has become classical in the author's country; an honour it certainly deserves, not only from the simple grace and energy of the language, but from the weight, dignity, and verity of the thoughts. The lines were written by the poet on his quitting the shores of the Caspian, where he had so long dwelt in solitude, gathering inspiration from the sublime Nature by which he was surrounded; and the poem cannot but be considered as a worthy outpouring of the feelings which a long communion with that Nature was so capable of communicating to a mind like that of Púshkin. Of the two great men whose recent death was naturally recalled to the poet's recollection by the view of the ocean, the name of one—Napoleon—is specifically mentioned; that of the other is—Byron. Seldom, in the prosecution of his difficult but not ungrateful task, has the translator felt the imperfection of his art, or the arduous nature of its object, more keenly than when attempting to give something like an adequate version of the eleventh and twelfth stanzas of this majestic composition. In order to give some idea of the fidelity of his imitation, we will subjoin the literal English of these eight lines:—
He vanish'd, wept by liberty,
Leaving to the world his crown.
Roar, swell with storm-weather;
He was, O sea, thy bard!
Thine image was stamp'd upon him,
He was created in thy spirit;
Like thee, mighty, deep, and gloomy,
Like thee, untameable!
Farewell, free sky, and thou, O Ocean!
For the last time, before my sight
Roll thy blue waves in ceaseless motion,
And shine with a triumphant light!
Like friend's farewell in parting hour,
And mournful as his whisper'd word,
Thy solemn roar—that voice of power—
Now for the last time I have heard.
Bound of my spirit's aspiration!
How often on thy shore, O Sea!
I've roved in gloomy meditation,
Tired with my mighty ministry!
Thine echoes—oh, how I have loved them!
Dread sounds—the voices of the Deep!
Thy waves—or rock'd in sunset sleep,
Or when the tempest-blast had moved them!
The fisher's peaceful sail may glide—
If such thy will—in safety gleaming,
Mid thy dark surges rolling wide;
But thou awak'st in sportful seeming—
And navies perish in thy tide!
How oft was mock'd my wild endeavour
To leave the dull unmoving strand,
To hail thee, Sea; to leave thee never,
And o'er thy foam to guide for ever
My course, with free poetic hand.
Thou calledst … but a chain was round me;
In vain my soul its fetters tore;
A mighty passion-spell had bound me,
And I remain'd upon thy shore.
Wherever o'er thy billows lonely
I might direct my careless prow,
Amid thy waste one object only
Would strike with awe my spirit now;
One rock … the sepulchre of glory …
There sleep the echoes that are gone,
The echoes of a mighty story;
There pined and died Napoleon.
There pined he, lone and broken-hearted.
And after, like a storm-blast, then
Another Mighty One departed,
Another Ruler among Men.
He vanish'd from among us—leaving
His laurels, Freedom, unto thee!
Roar, Ocean; swell-with tempest-grieving;
He was thy chosen bard, O sea!
Thine echoes in his voice resounded
Thy gloom upon his brow was shed,
Like thee, his soul was deep, unbounded,
Like thee 'twas mighty, dark, and dread.
The earth is empty now, * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
Farewell, then, Sea! Before me gleaming
Oft wilt thou float in sunny pride,
And often shall I hear in dreaming
Thy resonance, at evening-tide.
And I shall bear, to inland meadows
To the still woods, and silent caves,
Thy rocks, thy cliffs, thy lights, thy shadows,
And all the language of the waves.
The following lines we think elegantly and prettily expressed.
To roar of beast in wild-wood still,
To thunder-roll, to bugle-trill,
To maiden singing on the hill,
To every sound
Thy voice, responsive, straight doth fill
The air around.
Thou hearkenest when the storm-blasts blow,
To thunder peal,