PUSHKIN.

FROM “ONEGIN”

How sad to me is thine appearing,
O Springtime, hour of love’s unrest! 
Within the soul what nameless languors! 
What passions hid within the breast! 
With what a heavy, heavy spirit
From the earth’s rustic lap I feel
Again the joy of Springtide odors—­
That once could make my spirit reel! 
No more for me such pleasures thrilling,
All that rejoices, that has life,
All that exults,—­brings but despondence
To one past passion as past strife,
All is but prose to such as he,
Wearied unto satiety.

Perchance we fain would pass unnoticed
That which in Autumn drooped and pined,
Now radiant in verdure springing,
Since it must of our loss remind;
As with a tortured soul we realize
In Nature’s glad awakening,
That we shall never find renewal,
Who evermore are withering. 
Perchance there haunts us in remembrance,
Our own most dear and lyric dream,
Another long forgotten Springtime—­
And trembling neath this pang supreme,
The heart faints for a distant country
And for a night beside the sea!

PUSHKIN.

THE MEMORIAL

Beyond compare the monument I have erected,
And to this spirit column well-worn the people’s path,—­
Its head defiant will out-soar that famous pillar
  The Emperor Alexander hath!

I shall not vanish wholly,—­No! but young forever
My spirit will live on, within my lyre will ring,
And men within this world shall hold me in remembrance
  While yet one Singer lives to sing.

My glory shall in future fly through distant Russia,
Each race in its own tongue shall name me far and wide,
The Slav, the Finn, the Kalmyk, all shall know me—­
  The Tungoose in his reindeer hide.

Among my people I shall be long loved and cherished,
Because their noblest instincts I have e’er inflamed,
In evil hours I lit their hearts with fires of freedom,
  And never for their pleasures blamed.

O Muse, pursue the calling of thy Gods forever! 
Strive not for the garland, nor look upon the pain—­
Unmoved support the voice of scorn or of laudation,
  And argument with Fools disdain!

PUSHKIN.

The Alexander column, standing before the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, is a monolith eighty feet high; with the pedestal measuring one hundred and fifty feet.

TAMARA

Where waves of the Terek are waltzing
  In Dariel’s wickedest pass,
There rises from bleakest of storm crags
  An ancient grey towering mass.

In this tower by mad winds assaulted,
  Sat ever Tamara, the Queen—­
A heavenly angel of beauty,
  With a spirit of hell’s own demesne.

Through the mist of the night her gold fires
  Gleamed down through the valley below,
A welcome they threw to the pilgrim,
  In their streaming and beckoning glow.