hour. Shadows retreat to silent oak thickets. From whitening fields wafts honey-scent. .......... What a wondrous day! Centuries will pass and in the same eternal order and river will sparkle and flow and meadows will breathe in the sun. 333. TO MIKHAIL PETROVICH POGODIN Here's an unsightly list of my verses. Without glancing at them, I present them to you, not controlling my sloth enough to take at least a quick look through them. .......... In our age verses live a second or two, born in the morning, dying towards evening. Why make a fuss? The hand of oblivion will carry out its editorial task with precision. 334. IN MEMORY OF E.P. KOVALEVSKY In the ranks of the fatherland's forces yet another bold warrior's fallen and yet again all honest, Russian hearts will sigh at their grievous loss. .......... This living soul was valiantly true to himself, always and everywhere, this living flame, often smoking as it burned in suffocating milieux. .......... Unembarrassed, he believed in truth and all life long he battled the vulgar and the petty. He fought, not once giving up. He was a rare man in Russia. ......... Not only will Russia lament his passing: he was dear in that alien land, and where blood flows joylessly there too will flow tears of recognition. 335. The well-wishers of the Russian press, as do all of you, gentlemen, make her feel sick, but the trouble is that she doesn't actually throw up. 336. A HEINE MOTIF (HEINE) If death is night, if life is day, ah, you mottled day, you've exhausted me! Shadows thicken above my bed. Drowsiness attracts my head. .......... Impotent, I yield to it. But through the mute murk a dream persists, somewhere there, above, the clear day's glistening and an invisible choir sings of love. 337. You weren't born a Pole, though you still feel you're one of the szlachta, and you're Russian, you must be aware, only in the estimation of the Third Section. .......... Slave of influential gentlemen, with what noble valour your freedom of speech allows you to fulminate against all those whom you've muzzled! .......... Not in vain have you served with your pen the aristocracy. In which servants' quarters did you acquire this knightly manner? 338. "No, I can't see you..." Thus indeed I spoke not once but a hundred times, while you, you wouldn't believe it. ......... In one thing my informer is wrong, if he really has decided to inform, why, interrupting me, did he not bother finishing what he was saying? .......... And now he pesters me, this course, insolent-joker, putting aside his notion, to re-establish my literal text. .......... Yes, I said, and more than once - it wasn't an isolated incident - We still can't see you - without that sympathetically deep, .......... heartfelt and holy love, with which - how can one not be aware of this? - the whole of Russia has become accustomed to admire its best star? 339. With which heartfelt, simple greeting shall we commemorate the holy memory of the thousandth anniversary of this great day marking Cyril's death? .......... What words can we impress upon this day, if not words uttered by him, when, bidding farewell to his brother and friends, he reluctantly abandoned your dust, Rome? .......... Participating in his work, over a whole span of ages, across so many generations, we too furrowed for him, amidst temptations and doubts. .......... Like him, we in our turn, not finishing our work, we too will leave it and, recalling his sacred words, then we'll call them out: "Don't betray yourself, great Russia!" .......... Don't believe foreigners, motherland, their duplicitous wisdom or their insolent deceits, and, like blessed Cyril, you too must not reject your great service to the Slavs.' 340. It's not given us to foretell how our words will echo through the ages, but sympathy is given us as grace is given us. 341. There are two powers, two fateful powers. We spend our lives under their ban. From cradle to grave our lives are never ours. They are Death and the Judgement of Man. .......... You don't resist them, you just kneel and they don't answer for their deeds. They show no mercy. They don't heed our protests. Their verdicts allow no appeal. .......... Death's a gentleman who does not dissemble. Unmoved by all considerations, he's of single mind. He reaps his brethren, struggling or submitting blind when beneath his scythe as equals they assemble. .......... Society is different: disharmony and strife this jealous leader will not tolerate. He will not cut you honest and straight but by the roots will rive your life. .......... And woe to him, alas, twofold woe to that youthful, energetic pride which with smiling gaze and decisive stride into that unequal battle dares to go. .......... When, fatefully aware of all his rights, with the blossoming courage which beauty has planted in him, unflinching, by his task enchanted, he encounters slander and he fights, .......... no mask covers his eyes He'll not be humbled, beaten, pushed. See, from his brow he's brushed abuse and menaces: 'Let them criticise!' .......... Yes, woe to him: the more artless, the more guilty he'll appear. Such is the World: it plays the brute where the guilt's more humanly sincere. 342. MAY 11TH., 1869 The word of the Gospel has now taught us all in its sacred simplicity, all of us gathered here once again at this general celebration: "Standing on its rocky summit, the City will not conceal itself from the gaze of man." .......... Let this proclamation not be in vain, let it be our behest, and we, fraternally celebrating this great day, let us place our union on such a summit so that all may see it, all the fraternal tribes. 343. Just as the trees in Peter's plantations have grown splendidly in Catherine's valley, so may the living Russian word, now sown here, send down deeper roots and grow. 344. TO O.I. ORLOVA-DAVYDOVA Here, where destiny's gifts are illuminated by spirit, justified by philanthropy, involuntarily man is reconciled with fate, the soul consciously makes friends with Providence. 345. TO ANDREY NIKOLAEVICH MURAVYOV There, on the summit of an overhang an aerial, iridescent temple goes off into the skies, a wonder to the eyes, as if soaring to heaven, where the First-Named Andrey's cross still shines today, white against the skies of Kiev, sacred observer of these places, .......... reverently leaning your dwelling against its feet, you live there, no idle dweller, at the decline of the working day. And who without humility could not revere in you today the union of life and aspiration and steadfast firmness in the battle? .......... Yes, many, many tribulations have you endured and overcome. Live, then, not in vain awareness of your deserts and good deeds, but for love, for example, so that people might be convinced by you of what can be accomplished by effective faith and the constant structure of thought. 346. IN THE COUNTRY What's all this desperate yelling, racket and flapping of wings? Such bedlam's somewhat out of place. Who's responsible for such things? Geese by the river, a flock of ducks, suddenly frightened, scatter. Where to? Do they know themselves? They're like lunatics with their clatter. ......... What sudden alarm makes all these voices go at once? It's not a dog, it's a four-legged devil. A demon-dog has burst into the farm. Self-confident to a fault, this riotous fellow who loves to brag has totally ruined the regal peace and chased all the birds for a gag. ......... As if he'd like to follow them, just to rub it in, he shows that he has nerves of steel as his wings he tries to win. Why all this movement? Where's the sense? Such waste of energy cannot be right! What is it that instils such fear that it puts the geese and ducks to flight? .......... Ah, but there's a purpose, to it all, you see: someone noticed a stagnant creek and for the sake of progress swift action was the decree. So, benevolent Providence slipped the urchin from his chain so that the purpose of their wings they should never forget again. .......... Though in much that happens today there doesn't seem much sense, that very genius of the age is ready to explain it all away. Some of you might think he's merely barking, but there's a higher role that he's fulfilling: he wants to understand and then release the logical faculty of ducks and geese. 347. Nature is a sphinx. The truer she kills you with her eternal riddle, it's more than likely, for centuries, the truer she has fooled you. 348. TO THE CZECHS FROM THE MOSCOW SLAVS Brethren, to your festivals, meeting you in your exultation, Moscow comes to meet you with reverent hope. .......... In the midst of ecstatic turmoil, in the heat of great agitation, she brings to you a guarantee, a guarantee of love and union. .......... Take from her hands that which once was yours, that which the old Czech family bought for itself at such a price, .......... such a fearful price that even today the memory is your best sanctuary, your life blood. .......... Take the Cup! Like a star in the night of fates it has shone to you, and it has raised your impotence above the world of man. .......... Oh, remember what a beloved sign it was to you, and that it was in the inextinguishable fire that it was acquired. .......... And of this great payment, the property of great fathers, for all their hard labours, for all their sacrifices and sufferings, .......... you allow yourself to be deprived by foreign, audacious falsehood, you allow it, alas, to smear the honour of your fathers and God's truth! .......... And are you condemned for long to bear this heaviest of sentences, this spiritual captivity, oh Czech people of one blood? .......... No, no, not in vain did your forefathers call down grace upon you, and it will be given to you to understand that there is no salvation for you without the Cup. .......... It alone will finally solve for you the riddle of your people: in it there is spiritual freedom and the crown of union. ......... Approach this wondrous Cup, gained by your best blood, approach, step closer to it with hope, faith and love. 349. No matter how we're crushed by separation, it compels us to succumb. The heart has another tormentor, harder to tolerate, more painful still. .......... The moment of separation has passed. All we're left with in our hands is a single cover that we can only half see through. .......... We know that underneath this gauze lies everything which pains our soul. Like some strange, invisible being it hides from us, stays silent. ........ What's the point of such trials? The soul can't help being confused. On the wheel of bewilderment it cannot stop being whirled. .......... The moment of separation has passed and we don't dare, when the time is ripe, touch then pull aside this cover we find so hateful! 350. TODAY'S EVENT Pennants on the Dardanelles, festive cannon thundering. Skies are clear, bright waters swell. Tsargrad is exulting .......... with every reason to rejoice, for all along enchanted coasts, the jolly-hearted pasha has invited guests to merry toasts. .......... He regales them all most handsomely, his dear allies from the West. He'd pawn his whole authority to give them nothing but the best. .......... From the very sagest reaches in their Frankish ships they spill. Can you blame them, can you really, when Mohammed foots the bill? .......... Thunder of cannon, crash of music! All of Europe's come to berth, every power in the world enjoys this carnival of mirth. .......... See this lively western orgy - frenzied, shouting, in it pours, shares the secrets of the harem, bursting open secret doors. .......... Against the luscious backdrop of wondrous mountains and two seas this Christian princes' congress with Islam is extremely pleased. .......... No end to their embraces. They cannot overdo their praise. Stars glow in the West, oh, behold their joyous rays! .......... All the dearer, brighter yet one shines bright while they carouse, the fairy in her coronet, the daughter born of Rome, his spouse. .......... Notorious in her theatre of elegance and ploys, a second Cleopatra, royal privilege enjoys. .......... A joy to all, she means no harm, appearing in the East, and every head was bowed to her the sun has risen from the West! .......... Only where the shadows wander through the mountains, through the vales, far from all this noise and racket, only where the shadows wander in the night, from fresh-hewn weals, slashed by scores of heathen swords, Christian blood still freely pours. 351. TO A.F. HILFERDING Your failure's such a glittering success I cannot wait to offer my congratulations, and it has brought you yet more honour, a source of edification to the rest. .......... The whole world has already heard precisely how you've served our country - apart, that is, from native Germans- across the years with the Russian word. .......... Ah no, they really know what you've achieved, in this inimical Slavonic world, and as I've said, the whole world knows the credit's yours alone, and this is why they're peeved. .......... Throughout this whole enormous place they've met you more than once: the Balkans, with the Czechs, and on the Danube, everywhere they've met you face to face. .......... Without going back on what they said - - most valiant until this moment - how can they let you in their secret citadel, through the walls of their ivory tower tread, .......... this place the Russian Treasury underwrites for the sake of these glorious defences, admit you, you, this brave German garrison, never having lost a fight? 352. TO YU. F. ABAZA Harmony has power over souls, a boundless reach. All living people love to hear the notes of its dusky, kindred speech. .......... Something groans within them, violently heaving, a spirit-prisoner in chains pleading for freedom, struggling. It will be heard. It begs for birth. It strains. .......... It's not like that when you are singing: different feelings rise. In your song there is full freedom, an end to strife, an end to everything that ties. .......... Bursting from this prison of pain it grasps the links which held it, severs, rends. Wild-willed the soul exults, its sentence at an end. .......... This infinitely mighty summons causes light and dark to roll apart and from within we hear no music - we hear your living soul. 353. I read my rebuke, which was eloquent and lively. I said it all so nicely, I'm satisfied, so I approve. 354. Thus has providence judged: the imminent grandeur of the great Slavonic tsar shall be proclaimed to the universe not by almighty thunder's drumming, but by a mosquito's noisy humming. 355. FROM EGMONT (GOETHE) Joy and grief in living ecstasy, thoughts and the heart in eternal agitation, exulting in the sky, languishing on earth, passionately exulting, passionately pining, life knows bliss in love alone. 356. HUS AT THE STAKE The pyre has been built. The fateful flame's about to flare and all is silent, save for gentle crackles as deep within the pyre the treacherous fire filters. .......... Crowding closer, people fanned by darting smoke. All are here, uneducated folk, here the oppressed and the oppressor, violence and falsehood: knights and clergy, .......... here the treacherous kaiser, here the high assembly of imperial and spiritual princes, and he himself, the hierarchy of Rome, sinful in infallibility. .......... She's here too, simple old woman, unforgotten since those times, crossing herself and sighing, bringing, like a penny, her kindling to the pyre. .......... Like a sacrificial offering, your great and righteous man before us all, already fanned by fiery brilliance, praying, voice untrembling, .......... this sacred teacher of the Czechs unwavering witness to Christ, stern exposer of Vatican lies in all his high simplicity, .......... betraying neither god nor his own people, undefeated, battling on for holy truth and for His freedom, for everything which Rome called heresy. .......... In spirit he's in Heaven, in family love he's here still, among his people, shining, knowing that it was his blood which flowed defending the blood of Christ. .......... Oh country of the Czechs, born of one stock! Do not renounce his legacy! Oh, finish off his spiritual feat, celebrate this union of brothers! .......... Severing the chains with which that holy fool, that Rome oppressed you for so long, on Hus's inextinguishable pyre melt the final link! 357. Over ancient, Russian Vilnius kindred crosses glimmer. Orthodoxy's pealing bronze makes all the heavens shudder. .......... Fearsome deeds forgotten. Gone the ages of temptation. Heavenly lilies blossom across the blight of desolation. .......... Sacred ways are coming back, traditions fine of early days. Only the most recent past has dropped into the realm of shades, .......... whence, as in a hazy dream, before the world's awake, our very peace of mind this past still wants to shake, .......... and as the moon's about to leave the sky, in that early morning chill, across the land just waking up a spectral visitor wanders still. 358. K.B. I met you and the past came back to life in my dead heart. Remembering a golden time, my heart became so warm. .......... Just as in late autumn there are days, the transient hour, when suddenly spring wafts again and something stirs within us, .......... so, winnowed within by the breath of fullness my soul knew in those years, with a rapture I thought I'd forgotten, I stare into your dear face. .......... As if we'd been apart for ages I stare at you and think I'm dreaming, and suddenly sounds unsilenced in me could be heard within me, but louder! .......... That was more than reminiscence: my life began to talk once more, as did in you that very same charm, as did in my soul that very same love! 359. Tired and in one piece, I got here on time, today I say farewell to the white hat, but parting with you - that didn't go well. 360. TWO UNITIES Blood's pouring over the brim of the cup filled to overflowing by the wrath of God, and the West is drowning in it. The blood is spattering you, my friends, my brothers! Slavonic world, pull closer together! .......... "Unity", an oracle of our century has said, "can only be welded by iron and blood." Well, we'll try welding it with love. Let's see which lasts the longer. 361. Submissive to a high command standing guard over thought, we haven't been too diligent, despite the carbine in our hand. .......... We didn't want the job at all. We rarely threatened and chose to be a mere guard of honour rather than have the warder's key. 362. Whatever life might have taught us, still the heart believes in wonders: there is a strength which never wanes, there is untainted beauty, .......... and earthly fading will not touch unearthly flowers, and in the midday heat the dew on them will not dry up, .......... and this faith will not deceive whoever lives by it alone. Not everything which has flowered here will wither. Not all that has been will pass by! .......... But the grace of this faith for the few is accessible only to those who in life's stern trials, like you, still loving, were able to suffer, .......... have been able to cure others' ailments by their suffering, who have laid down their soul for their friends and endured everything to the end. 363. Yes, you have kept your word: moving not a cannon, not a rouble, our native Russian land once more exercises its rights, .......... and the sea bequeathed to us, once more with its free billows, forgetting the short-lived shame, kisses its native shore. .......... Fortunate is he today who gains a victory not by blood but by the intellect, happy he who can find in himself Archimedes's centre of gravity, .......... who, full of brisk patience, has combined calculation with valour, he it is who has stuck to his aspirations, who has dared at the apt moment. .......... But is the confrontation over? And how will your mighty lever strengthen stubbornness in clever folk and lack of awareness in fools? .......... 364. I'm bewildered, and let me say I find it incredible, most profound: My daughter, blushing-red and blond, Wants to become a sister in grey! 365. Brother, you have been with me so long. Now you've departed to our common goal, leaving me where everything is bare, a solitary figure on a solitary knoll. .......... Must I wait here long on my own? Give it a day or a year and I'll vacate this spot from which I gaze into the evening murk, not knowing what will be my fate. .......... Non-being is so simple! Nothing leaves a trace. With or without me, whom does it concern? Snows will sweep the steppes. The gloom will be the same and everything will stay precisely in its place! .......... You can't count losses. Someone's counted every day. That vibrant life's already far behind. Ahead, there's absolutely nothing and I, just as I am, along the fateful queue pick out my way. 366. Happy New Year, all the best, and constant success to you. That's a greeting from a loving dog, take it with all my sympathy. 367. A fool we've known for ages, the bustlesome old censor feeds any old way on our flesh, God bless him! 368. I'm half asleep and I can't work out this combination: I hear the whistle of runners on the snow and the chirruping of spring swallows. 369. THE BLACK SEA Fifteen years have passed since then. A whole gamut of events has come to pass, but faith has not deceived us, and we hear the last rattle of Sevastopol rumbling. .......... The last, thunderous shot suddenly rang out, life-creating. The last word in the cruel battle has only now been spoken. It is the word of the Russian tsar. .......... And everything which till so recently had been raised up by blind hostility, so insolently, so arbitrarily, has crumpled in on itself before his authoritative honour .......... And there you have it: free element, as our national poet would have said, you roar as you did in days of yore, and your blue waves roll on and you sparkle in proud beauty! .......... Fifteen years you spent in forced confinement in the west. You didn't give in, you didn't complain, but the hour struck and the violation ended. It fell like a key to the sea bed. .......... Once again your importunate billows call on your kindred Russia, and into this feud, reasoned out by God, great Sevastopol awakes from its enchanted sleep. ......... And that which you, in days of old, hid from martial inclemency in your sympathetic breast you'll give us back, without casualties - the immortal Black Sea fleet. .......... Yes, in the heart of the Russian people this day will be consecrated, it is our external freedom, it will illuminate the grave's shadows of the St. Peter and Paul vault. 370. THE VATICAN'S ANNIVERSARY There was a day of judgement and censure, that fateful, irrevocable day, when to ensure a long fall, he stepped onto the highest rung .......... and, constricted by God's design, and driven to that height, with his infallible foot he stepped into the bottomless emptiness, .......... when, obeying others' passions, the plaything and victim of dark forces, so blasphemously-equably he proclaimed himself a divinity. .......... Suddenly a parable was created and appeared about the new Man-God and to sacrilegious tutelage Christ's church was betrayed. .......... Oh, how much dissension and turmoil since then has that infallible one caused, and how beneath the storms of these debates blasphemy ripens and temptation grows. .......... In fear seeking God's truth, suddenly coming to are all these tribes, and as with the thousand-year old lie it's finally poisoned for them. .......... And it is powerless to overcome this poison, flowing in their veins, in their most treasured veins, and will it flow long, and where will it end? .......... But no, however stubbornly you fight, falsehood will surrender, the reverie will dissipate, and the Vatican Dalai-Lama will not be summoned to be the vicar of Christ. 371. Of the life that raged here, of bloody rivers that stained the ground what's survived whole, what has come down to us? You can see them now, a couple of mounds. .......... Two or three oaks have taken root, spreading wide, bold and fair, rustling leaves, and they don't care whose dust, whose memory they uproot. .......... Ignorant of her past, nature seems. Alien to her are our spectral years. We are vaguely aware that we exist as shadows in her dreams. .......... Completing life's useless game, one by one her children she devours in her peace-making abyss, welcoming, treating every one the same. 372. Enemy of narrow negativity, he always kept up with the age: as a man he was a Russian, he was a man before a sage. 373. TO THE MEMORY OF M.K. POLITKOVSKAYA Elle a ete douce devant la mort. The meaningful word has once more been vindicated by you: in the destruction of everything earthly, you were meekness and love. .......... At the very portals of sepulchral gloom, at the last, there was no lack of abundant love in your soul, there was an inexhaustible supply. .......... And that very loving power with which, not betraying yourself, you endured till the end all life's labour, all the day's malice, .......... that rejoicing power of benevolence and love, not giving way, made a home for your last hours. .......... And you, humble and obedient, defeating all death's fears, went placidly to meet it, as if at your father's summons. .......... Oh, how many souls who loved you, oh, how many familiar hearts, hearts, living by your life, will be stricken by your untimely end! .......... It was late when I met you on my path through life, but with sincere anguish I say "Farewell" to you. .......... In these days of desperate doubt, these days, suffering from lack of faith, when denser all around the shadows press onto the ruined earthly world, .......... oh, if in this fearsome division in which we're destined to live, there's still one revelation, there's an unbroken link .......... with the great mystery of death, then this, we see and believe, is the exit of a soul like you, their exit from our darkness. 374. On this day of the Orthodox East, this sacred, sacred great day, spread wide across the whole world your peals and clothe all Russia in them! .......... But do not limit your summons to the frontiers of Holy Russia. Let it be heard throughout the world, let it overflow its brim, .......... with its distant wave embracing that vale where my own child fights with wicked sickness, .......... that bright land, where in exile fate drew her, where the breathing of the southern sky she drinks as she would a medicine. .......... Oh, cure this ailing girl, pour joy into her soul, so that in Christ's resurrection her whole life would itself be resurrected. 375. There's peace and harmony between us, that was clear from the word go Let's greet each other, then, making the sign of the cross, you with me, me with you. 376. These dates are so illogical! What a mess this calendar is! Outside it's winter, as far as I remember, and yet in fullest bloom, as charming as only she can be, I'm greeting spring in late November! 377. Here's a whole world, living, varied, of magic sounds and magic dreams! Oh, this world, so youthfully handsome, is worth a thousand other worlds! 378. Saviour, I see your mansion decked out, but I have no clothes to enter it. 379. In my grave I'd love to lie as now upon my bed I lie. Silently, eternally I'd hear you as centuries passed by. .......... The following poems were written during the last six months of Tyutchev's final illness. During this period he suffered a number of strokes. 380. NAPOLEON III You too have completed your fateful campaign, duplicitous inheritor of great powers, man not of the fates but of blind chance. You're a sphinx whose riddle the coarse crowd solved but, the irresistible preacher of God's justice, not of earth's, you demonstrated to the world indeed how unsteady everything is if there's none of this truth there: you spent twenty stormy years pointlessly agitating the world, you sowed a lot of lies in the world and started a lot of tempests, and you scattered what was left and wasted what had been built up! The people who laid the crown upon you became dissolute thanks to you, and perished: and, true to your calling, stirring up the terrified world with your game, like a stupid child you gave it over to a long period of instability. There's no salvation in lies and violence, however you might boldly arm yourself with them, not for man's soul nor for his affairs. Listen while you celebrate, whoever he might now be, armed to the teeth with violence and deceit, your turn will come, and sooner or later you'll be defeated by it! But in expatiation of dark deeds you bequeathed to the world one great lesson: let people and lords make sense of it and each one who would compete with you; only there, only in that native family, where a living link with a higher power is sensed and where it's reinforced by mutual faith and a free conscience, where all its conditions are sacred and the people take heart in it, whether he stands by the throne or stands vigil at the head of the death bed, where the tsar's son lay, and all the people recently stood around that bed in Orthodox prayer. Oh, there's no place for treason here, or for various kinds of cunning, and extremely pitiful would be he who would insult this people by either slander or suspicion. 381. To you, ill in a distant land, it occurred to me, also suffering and in torment, to send you this verse, so that together with the happily splashing sea it would fly into your window, a distant echo of your native waters, and the Russian word, though for only a moment, would interrupt the singing of the Mediterranean. From that company, far from foreign, in which you were the soul and the love, where today with concentrated attention they keep an eye on your illness with sincere compassion, let him be closer than ever before, part of your soul, that best of men, that purest of souls, your dear, good, unforgettable husband! The soul, with which yours was fused, preserving you from harm's temptations, with which you spent all your life as one, fulfilling honourably your difficult task, that of an exemplary, Christian widow! .......... Greetings to you from that shade, dear and blessed to us both, who spent so little time among us, suffered bravely and loved hotly, rushing away from this vale of tears, where she succeeded in nothing, alas, in her long, heavy, exhausting struggle, forgiving people and fate for everything. And her native land she loved so much, that, being no warrior, she still offered her life to her country. She could not have parted with it in time, if another life could have saved it. 382. British leopard, why get so riled at us? Why do you wave your tail and growl so vexedly? Where's the source of this sudden alarm? What have we done wrong? Is it because, having penetrated deep into the central Asian steppes, our northern bear, our all-Russian man of the land refused to surrender his rights to defend himself, even biting back? To show his friends that he means business, he's not about to let the world see him as some hermit-fakir. He's not willing to let the world, right in public view, see him offer his body as a meal to all the snakes and creatures of the steppes. "No, that's not the way it will be!" - and he raised his paw. The leopard was so cross at this: "Ah, scoundrel! You bounder!" our lion roared in anger. "How dare this simple bear defend itself in my presence, raising its paw, even snapping at me! You'll see, it'll come to such a pass that he'll start to think he has the same rights as me, the radiant lion. We cannot tolerate such mischief!" 383. Of course, it is harmful to the well-being of the state to form a particular monarchy within it, but it's not compatible with the needs of the subjects to awaken in the Khanate an individual Khanate, to renew the traces and accords of long gone years and, pushing to one side all today's accords, set up a new structure and self-appointed, whimsically, suddenly in many-throned Moscow intellectually eclipsed, in God knows what intellectual gloom, suddenly to declare yourself a revived baskak of a non-existent Horde. 384. In days of misfortune and trouble when from the Golden Horde baskaks were sent to Moscow, I'm sure that even they would choose to despatch to the capital their more civil Tartars, as far as these two words can be compatible, but certainly the best they had at their disposal, and they wouldn't have sent Durnovo, though perhaps it's all much ado about nothing. 385. In punishment, God's taken everything away: my health, my strength of will, the air, my sleep. No, you're the only thing he's let me keep, a guarantee that I'll still pray. 386. SPRING IN ITALY Fragrant and bright, even since February spring has been entering gardens, and here the almond has suddenly come into bloom and its whiteness has infused all the greenery. 387. We surrender you to the sun of the south. It alone, we must admit, can love you more warmly than our own, although while here you have a tsar and winters, we wouldn't swap these places with any other countries. Here your heart stays with us. Go then, leave with God, but - your heart on it as a token - say you'll quickly return to us. And when you leave, from all sides, even from the wretched bed of suffering, let prayers and good wishes hurry after you, the solemn wishes of all Russian souls. 388. Here are some fresh blooms for you in honour of your name day. I spread more blossoms and myself, I wither so fast. I'd love to pick a handful of days, to weave one more garland with them for my name-day girl. 389. APRIL 17TH., 1818 In the first dawn of my days, it was early morning in the Kremlin, it was in the Chudovoy monastery, I was in a quiet, modest cell, the unforgettable Zhukovsky lived there. I awaited him, and, while waiting, I heard the moaning of the Kremlin bells. I paid close heed to the bronze storm which arose in the cloudless sky, suddenly replaced by a salvo of cannon. Everyone shuddered, comprehending this howl. Festive Moscow burned so with irridescent blue banners on this first azure-golden spring day. Here for the first time I understood the news that in the world there was a new dweller and a new royal guest in the Kremlin. At that moment you were endowed to the earth. From that moment this recollection has been burned into my soul dearly, like grace. Over many years that has not changed, it's accompanied me loyally all my life, and now, in early morning, it's as dear to me and has illuminated my sad sick-bed and proclaimed a celebration of grace. I always imagined that the very hour of this early event would be a good omen in my life and I wasn't mistaken: my whole life has passed under this gentle, beneficent influence. Good fortune was allotted me by gracious fate, and all my age I (above myself) saw the one constellation, his constellation, and let it be till the end my single star, and many, many times let it give joy to this day and this world and us. 390. TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY ALEXANDER II Good-hearted tsar, tsar with an evangelistic soul, with a sacred love to what is close to you, favour us, powerful one, by accepting this hymn of simple gratitude! You, embracing with your love not hundreds, but thousands of people, have with its wings benevolently covered my wretched self today, I have not declared myself in any way, and can have no claim to the tsar's attention other than that of my own suffering! You have deigned to look after me with your beneficent attention and, my spirits having risen, you have calmed me. Oh, be a renowned and praised tsar but not as a tsar, rather as God's vicar, lending your ear not only to the bright legions of your chosen ones, your heavenly servants, but also to the isolated, cut-off groans of beings lost on this earth, listening to their worshipful praise. What shall we wish for you, tsar? Loud celebrations and victories? You find no joy in them! We'll wish something better, like this: in proportion as you are summoned by sacred fate to act here, in this sad vale of tears, that you will be recognised more and more for what you are, a friend who does not dissemble, a friend of good. This is your just and loyal image, this is the best glory and honour for us! 391. INSOMNIA (A MOMENT AT NIGHT) At night in a deserted town there's an anguish-laden time when darkness grips streets tight and mist reigns in every corner. There's quiet calm. The moon has risen and the moon's blue-grey glimmer picks out a few churches lost in the distance. The glint of gilded heads, a sad, dull yawn, strikes bleakly at unsleeping eyes. Our heart is an orphan-child, lamenting and crying, despairingly moaning over love and life, vainly praying, bemoaning. All around is empty murk! My pitiful groans last an hour or so but, weakening, finally go. 392. Although he wasn't born a Slav, Slavdom's taken him to its heart and all his life he's served it honourably. He's done a lot, though he's lived little, and the initiative of much is down to him, and he has proved, alone and in the field, that he can be a warrior of valour. 393. Fate sends days to wrack and twist my body, to turn its fearsome fingers in my soul. Life presses down, a choking nightmare. Happy am I when on such days the all-merciful God sends me the best of priceless gifts, a friend's sympathetic hand, a warm, living hand which, touching me only lightly, dissipates numbness, scatters the fearsome nightmare from above and turns the tables on Fate's cruel blows. Life lives again, again blood flows and my heart believes in truth and love.  * NOTES *  These notes comprise information gleaned from a wide variety of sources. Tyutchev's translations of other poets appear in the main body of the text. All Russian, German and French sources are in my own translations. The English versions of works in Latin and Italian are referred to in the Acknowledgements and Bibliography. All poems not written by Tyutchev are given in full below with literal translations. Titles are given in the first instance in their original languages, Russian being transliterated, subsequently translated and where appropriate abbreviated, e.g. Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte der Philosophie der Menschheit becoming Ideas. I have relied on the dating established by such Russian scholars as Chulkov and Pigaryov and I rarely differ from their generally accepted conclusions. When I do I make this clear. We know the dates of most poems written after 1849, but many of the earlier ones are notoriously difficult to pinpoint. We can often rely on nothing other than Tyutchev's handwriting, inconsistent throughout his life, although a certain spidery, "Gothic" scrawl does appear to be a favourite style. Sometimes a sheet of paper on which he has scribbled a few line