The bronze Horseman / Медный всадник. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Александр Пушкин

he flood are taken from the journals of the day. The curious may consult the information collected by V. I. Berkh’.

      Introduction

      There, by the billows desolate, He stood, with mighty thoughts elate, And gazed, but in the distance only

      A sorry skiff on the broad spate Of Neva drifted seaward, lonely.

      The moss-grown miry bank with rare

      Hovels were dotted here and there

      Where wretched Finns for shelter crowded;

      The murmuring woodlands had no share

      Of sunshine, all in mist beshrouded.

      And thus

                                He mused: “From here, indeed

      Shall we strike terror in the Swede?

      And here a city by our labor

      Founded, shall gall our haughty neighbor;

      “Here cut” – so Nature gives command —

      “Your window[1] through on Europe; stand

      Firm-footed by the sea, unchanging!

      Ay, ships of every flag shall come

      By waters they had never swum,

      And we shall revel, freely ranging.”

      A century – and that city young,

      Gem of the Northern world, amazing,

      From gloomy wood and swamp upspring,

      Had risen, in pride and splendor blazing.

      Where once, by that low-lying shore,

      In waters never known before

      The Finnish fisherman, sole creature,

      And left forlorn by stepdame Nature,

      Cast ragged nets, – today, along

      Those shores, astir with life and motion,

      Vast shapely palaces in throng

      And towers are seen: from every ocean,

      From the world’s end, the ships come fast,

      To reach the loaded quays at last.

      The Neva now is clad in granite

      With many a bridge to overspan it;

      The islands lie beneath a screen

      Of gardens deep in dusky green.

      To that young capital is drooping

      The crest of Moscow on the ground,

      A dowager in purple, stooping

      Before an empress newly crowned.

      I love thee, city of Peter’s making;

      I love thy harmonies austere,

      And Neva’s sovran waters breaking

      Along her banks of granite sheer;

      Thy tracery iron gates; thy sparkling,

      Yet moonless, meditative gloom

      And thy transparent twilight darkling;

      And when I write within my room

      Or, lampless, read, – then, sunk in slumber,

      The empty thoroughfares, past number,

      Are piled, stand clear upon the night;

      The Admiralty spire is bright;

      Nor may the darkness mount, to smother

      The golden cloudland of the light,

      For soon one dawn succeeds another

      With barely half-an-hour of night.

      I love thy ruthless winter, lowering

      With bitter frost and windless air;

      The sledges along Neva scouring;

      Girls’ cheeks – no roses so bright and fair!

      The flash and noise of balls, the chatter;

      The bachelor’s hour of feasting, too;

      The cups that foam and hiss and spatter,

      The punch that in the bowl burns blue.

      I love the warlike animation

      On playing-fields of Mars; to see

      The troops of foot and horse in station,

      And their superb monotony;

      Their ordered, undulating muster;

      Flags, tattered on the glorious day;

      Those brazen helmets in their luster

      Shot through and riddled in the fray.

      I love thee, city of soldiers, blowing

      Smoke from thy forts: thy booming gun;

            – A Northern empress is bestowing

      Upon the royal house a son!

      Or when, another battle won,

      Proud Russia holds her celebration;

      Or when the Neva breaking free

      Her dark blue ice bears out to sea

      And scents the spring, in exultation.

      Now, city of Peter, stand thou fast,

      Foursquare, like Russia, vaunt thy splendor!

      The very element shall surrender

      And make her peace with thee at last.

      Their ancient bondage and their rancorous

      The Finnish waves shall bury deep

      Now vex with idle spite that cankers

      Our Peter’s everlasting sleep!

      There was a dreadful time, we keep

      Still freshly on our memories painted;

      And you, my friends, shall be acquainted

      By me, with all that history:

      A grievous record it will be.

      I

      O’er darkened Petrograd there rolled

      November’s breath of autumn cold,

      And Neva with her boisterous billow

      Splashed on her shapely bounding wall

      And tossed in restless rise and fall

      Like a sick man upon his pillow.

      Twas late, and dark had fallen; the rain

      Beat fiercely on the window-pane;

      A wind that howled and wailed was blowing.

      Twas then that young Evgeny came

      Home from a party – I am going

      To call our hero by that name,

      For it sounds pleasing, and moreover

      My pen once liked it; why discover

      The needless surname? – True, it may

      Have been illustrious in past ages,

      – Rung, through tradition, in the pages

      Of Karamzin; and yet, today

      That name is never recollected,

      By Rumour and the World rejected.

      Our hero – somewhere – served the State;

      He shunned the presence of the great;

      Lived in Kolomna; for the fate

      Cared not of forbears dead and rotten,

      Or antique matters long forgotten.

      So, home Evgeny came, and tossed

      His

1

Algarotti has somewhere said: “Petersburg est la fenê-tre, par laquelle la Russie regarde en Europe” (Pushkin’s note).