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

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

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 cloak aside; undressed; and sinking
Sleepless upon his bed, was lost
In sundry meditations – thinking
Of what? – How poor he was; how pain
And toil might some day hope to gain
An honored, free, assured position;
How God, it might be, in addition
Would grant him better brains and pay.
Such idle folk there were, and they,
Lucky and lazy, not too brightly
Gifted, lived easily and lightly;
And he – was only in his second
Year at the desk.
He further reckoned
Those still the ugly weather held;
That still the river swelled and swelled;
That almost now from Neva’s eddy
The bridges had been moved already;
That from Parasha he must be
Parted for some two days, or three.
And all that night he lay, so dreaming,
And wishing sadly that the gale
Would bate its melancholy screaming
And that the rain would not assail
The glass so fiercely… But sleep closes
His eyes at last, and he reposes,

But see, the mists of that rough night
Thin out, and the pale day grows bright;
That dreadful day! – For Neva, leaping
Seaward all night against the blast
Was beaten in the strife at last,
Against the frantic tempest sweeping;
And on her banks at break of day
The people swarmed and crowded, curious,
And reveled in the towering spray
That spattered where the waves were furious.
But the wind driving from the bay
Dammed Neva back, and she receding
Came up, in wrath and riot speeding;
And soon the islands flooded lay.

Madder the weather grew, and ever
Higher upswelled the roaring river
And bubbled like a kettle, and whirled
And like a maddened beast was hurled
Swift on the city. And things routed
Fled from its path, and all about it
A sudden space was cleared; the flow
Dashed in the cellars down below;
Canals above their borders spouted.
Behold Petropol floating lie
Like Triton in the deep, waist-high!

A siege! The wicked waves, attacking
Climb thief-like through the windows;
backing,
The boats sternforemost smite the glass;
Trays with their soaking wrappage pass;
And timbers, roofs, and huts all shattered,
The wares of thrifty traders scattered,
And the pale beggar’s chattels small,
Coffins from sodden graveyards – all
Swim in the streets!
And contemplating
God’s wrath, the folk their doom are waiting.
All will be lost; ah, where shall they
Find food and shelter for today?
The glorious emperor, now departed,
In that grim year was sovereign
Of Russia still. He came, sick-hearted,
Out on his balcony, and in pain
He said: “No Tsar, with God, is master
Over God’s elements!” In thought
He sat, and gazed on the disaster
Sad-eyed, and on the evil wrought;
For now the squares with lakes
were studded,
Their torrents broad the streets
had flooded,
And now forlorn and islander
The palace seemed. The emperor said
One word: – and see, along the highways
His generals [2] Count Miloradovich and Adjutant-General Benckendorff ( Pushkin’s note ).