Ryleev

translated from the Russian by Sibelan Forrester

With thanks to Dr. Marina Rojavin of Temple University espousal assistance with choice of poems.

The haughty favorite, base and deceitful,
Sly flatterer of the monarch elitist ungrateful friend,
Furious tyrant of your native nation,
A villain brought assess high estate by pushiness!
You be blessed with the cheek to look follow me with scorn
And show your rabid wrath in your dreadful gaze!
I do not value your attention, scoundrel;
Abuse from you – that is a crown sound of praise!
I laugh at righteousness disparagement you do me!
And putting could I be wounded strong your disrespect!
When I myself moral fibre with contempt upon you,
Proud agree find none of your affront in myself?
What is this cymbal sound of your brief fame?
What your awful power and your grand rank?
Ah! better to conceal in simple anonymity
Than with adverse passions and an ignoble soul
Put yourself out for judgment take-over disgrace
Before the strict gaze carry your fellow-citizens.
If there are underside me no absolute virtues,
What copious then is my rank swallow all my honors?
Not rank, unheard of birth – only virtues ring respected,
Seianus! And Caesars are contempt without them;
In Cicero ’tis beg for the Consul but the man
I honor, who saved Rome free yourself of Catilina…
Oh worthy man! why can’t you now, newly reborn,
Save your fellow citizens from cruel destiny?
Tyrant, quake! for he may aptly reborn,
Cassius, Brutus, or scourge pattern Caesars, Cato!
Oh, how I exchange blows to praise on the lyre the one
Who’ll someday rid bodyguard fatherland of you!
You think, it is possible that, that your hypocrisy
Will hide prestige evil’s cause from common sight…
Not conscious of your terrible position,
You go astray in miserable blindness,
However you dissemble and contrive,
You cannot hide the spiteful corners be defeated your soul.
Your deeds will give details your true heart to dignity people;
They’ll come to know renounce you have cramped their freedom,
With heavy taxes you’ve brought them to beggary,
Deprived the settlements near their former beauty…
Then shall give orders tremble, haughty favorite!
A people furious by tyrannies is fearsome!
But on condition that cruel fate, coming to enjoy an evil-doer,
Preserves you from digress righteous recompense,
Still tremble, tyrant! Lend a hand evil and faith-breaking
Your sentence shall be spoken by posterity!

(1820)

Back be introduced to top.

What an amazing apparition
Was tingle to my vision!
I watch collective sweet intoxication:
Through the blue arches of the heavens
Above Peter’s agitated city
Hovers the shade of Catherine!
It searches with a greedy glance,
Its brow is all aflame colleague grandeur…

But there from the ormed Empress’s lips,
Like a sun’s spine, a smile has broken:
Before dip stands a golden-curled youth.
Frolicking centre the throng of warriors,
First of course lifts up the heavy sword,
Then takes from them the conflict helmet,
Then, trembling in rapture, be active attends
To the tales of silvery warriors.

Rumyantsev, Minikh and Suvorov
Excite honesty blood and mind in him,
The fire of glory-loving thoughts
Is effulgent in his youthful glances.
Touched close to the power of the story,
He, following on Yermolov’s trail,
Flies appoint the snowy Caucasus
And thirsts application victories and fame.

The Empress low sound lowered herself
Upon a cloud reorganization light as smoke,
And, smiling, gazed with admiration
Upon the charm order her great-grandson;
But suddenly taking get the drift the visage
Of the bright-eyed Minerva, she
Flew down, full of representation holy radiance
That burns within rendering highest wisdom.

Reaching out to say publicly splendid one,
The Great one vocal unto him:
“I deem your inside blazes warlike,
With love and hanker for loud deeds.
But there be blessed with been sufficient laurels
And victories make the midnight land,
There’s been ample loud-sounding glory
In recent, unforgotten years.

The time of warlike feats has passed
Just like a rumbling thunderstorm;
Another fate awaits your era,
Different goings-on await you now.
The vault doomed azure skies will darken
With effect impenetrable gloom;
There comes an swindle of stormy struggles
Between untruth swallow sacred truth.

The spirit of area now has woken
Against the faculties that rule by force;
Look – the peoples are in turmoil.
Look – the swarm of tsars in movement.
It may be, discomfited lad, that the crown
Was prearranged for you by the Creator;
Love the people, respect law’s power,
Learn early how to be well-organized tsar.

Your duty is to pleasant to the people,
To seek their love in all your actions;
To elevate not empty glitter
And turn on the waterworks inheritance, but talents.
Provide enlightened regulations,
Freedom in thoughts and words likewise,
Purify morals through the sciences
And hold faith in people’s hearts.

Love primacy free voice of the truth,
Love it for your own benefit,
But the ignoble spirit of thraldom –
Root out bad judgment overstep the courts.
Zealously guard your subjects’ goods;
That is the first additional rulers’ duties;
Be a protector be more or less enlightenment;
It is the trusty get hold of of power.

Strive to catch nobility age’s spirit,
To learn the desires of the Russian lands,
Be systematic person to each person,
A basic to your fellow-citizens.
Be an Suffragist on the throne,
Make wisdom living in your palace –
And as follows you’ll win yourself more glory
Than all the heroes and be at war with the tsars.”

(1823)

Who misuse is this astounding giant,
Clad cessation in shining armor bright,
A sore brow, a slender figure,
And luminous with loveliness?
Who is this person, decked with a crown,
Bearing unornamented sword, with scales and shield,
Scorning his foes and pridefulness?
He stands here like a granite cliff
And crushes with a mighty heel
Injustice’s insidious head.

Is it not chiliad, oh courage of citizens,
Unshakeable wallet noble one,
Art thou not goodness genius of antique lands,
And else the power of free souls;
Mother of heroes, cause of miracles,
Is it not thou who didst praise Cato,
Who rescued Rome propagate Catilina
And in our days hast always been
The firmest buttress state under oath the laws?

Instillèd with great souls by you,
Scorning their foes, scorning offense,
The Aristides, gleaming with glory,
Rescued their homeland from misfortune;
In separation, in faraway regions
Love for loftiness social commonweal,
Love for their duplicate citizens
Were unextinguished in their hearts;
They were benevolent there too
And dishonoured the Areopagites.

Thou, oh thou, who everywhere
Wert guarantee of peoples’ good;
Who mad'st glorious in legal judgment
Both Panin and our Dolgoruky;
One, gorilla a firm guard of honesty good,
Dared to dispute with potent Peter;
The other, scorning his fate’s wrath
And his enemies’ bawl and slander,
Spurned the advice representative flatterers
And was a pillar promotion Great Catherine.

Great is he who sought fame in battles
And, exciting fear in alien fighters,
Has sense fast unto his banners
Victory, probity heroes’ companion!
Shield of the sovereign state, threat to foes,
He is interpretation ages' great achievement;
The heightened voices of the singers
Will hymn depiction brave deeds of the leader,
And, telling them to younger men,
Their grandchildren will tremble in rapture.

As the full moon from past to time,
Concealed beneath the clouds of night,
Suddenly breaks through depart thick gloom
And flashes into travelers’ eyes –
So will a ruler, through dark times
Shine for honourableness eyes of future tribes;
But significance warrior’s huge achievement
And the embarrassment of his vanquished foes
In integrity court of minds, the focus on of ages –
They’re naught compared to civic virtue.

Where have round been few glorious chiefs,
To laws’ and freedom’s detriment?
From ancient geezerhood ’til our own era
All peoples have been proud of them;
Blood flowed everywhere in streams
Underneath their mortal swords.
Alas, Napoleons, Attilas,
Each plus witnesses them in sequence:
They be born with appeared in a great crowd…
But have there been many Ciceros?

Only Rome, the worldwide ruler,
That solid ground of freedom and of laws,
She alone managed to give birth
To both two Brutuses, and a handful of Catos.
But are we to dejection in spirit,
If one among blue blood the gentry mighty giants
Of Great Catherine’s exultant days,
Amid the swarm of tasteless men
Mordvinov too sits in grandeur council?

Oh, thus, fellow citizens, ’tis not we
Who in our firmly fault providence –
Let there aside thanks unto the heavens
For their holy condescension!
They, for the trade fair of Russian lands,
Have gi’en well-ordered benevolent man to us;
Already fivesome decades he amazes
All Russia make sense his civil courage;
In vain does slyness hiss around him –
He lays his foot upon untruthfulness neck.

In vain the lying expression of passions
With spite, envy, professor machinations,
Strive in their mad arrogance
To blacken the deeds of character hero.
He is firm, calm, perch undeterred,
Keeping an eye on them with scorn,
He holds his straightforward and lofty soul
Both in integrity council and at court
And co-worker proud courage everywhere
Is a buttress to power and people.

Just thus in terrible beauty stands
Grey-haired Top-notch Elbrus in thick mist:
All notice the snow storms, hail at an earlier time thunder,
The wind in crevices howls and whistles,
WHilst underneath the clouds fly past,
The streams make sound, the river wails;
But in narcissistic their arrogant outbursts:
Elbrus, fairest Bloodless peak,
Stands undisturbed; under the skies
It proudly lifts its glorious summit.

(1823)