Pushkin's Poem

 Here is some poetry by Alexander Pushkin

To the Slanderers of Russia

Why rave ye, babblers, so — ye lords of popular wonder?
Why such anathemas ‘gainst Russia do you thunder?
What moves your idle rage? Is’t Poland’s fallen pride?
‘T is but Slavonic kin among themselves contending,
An ancient household strife, oft judged but still unending,
A question which, be sure, you never can decide.
For ages past still have contended,
These races, though so near allied:
And oft ‘neath Victory’s storm has bended
Now their, and now our side.
Which shall stand fast in such commotion
The haughty Liakh, or faithful Russ?
And shall Slavonic streams meet in a Russian ocean? –
Or it'll dry up? This is the point for us.


Leave us!: Your eyes are all unable
To read our history’s bloody table;
Strange in your sight and dark must be
Our springs of household enmity!
To you the Kremlin and Prága’s tower
Are voiceless all, you mark the fate
And daring of the battle-hour
And understand us not, but hate.

What stirs ye?
Is it that this nation,
On Moscow’s flaming walls, blood-slaked and ruin-quench’d,
Spurn’d back the insolent dictation
Of Him before whose nod ye blenched?
Is it that into dust we shatter’d,
The Dagon that weigh’d down all earth so wearily,
And our best blood so freely scatter’d,
To buy for Europe peace and liberty?


Ye’re bold of tongue — but hark, would ye in deed but try it
Or is the hero, now reclined in laurelled quiet,
Too weak to fix once more, Izmail’s red bayonet?
Or hath the Russian Tsar ever, in vain commanded?
Or must we meet all Europe banded?
Have we forgot to conquer yet?
Or rather, shall they not, from Perm to Tauris’ fountains,’
From the hot Colchian steppes, to Finland’s icy mountains,
From the grey, half-shatter’d wall,
To fair Kathay, in dotage buried
A steely rampart, close and serried,
Rise, Russia’s warriors, one and all?
Then send your numbers without number,
Your madden’d sons, your goaded slaves,
In Russia’s plains there’s room to slumber,
And well they’ll know their brethren’s graves!

Version 2

What do you raise an outcry over, national bards?
Why do you threaten Russia with Anathema?
What stirred you up? The throes of Lithuania?
Desist: this is a strife of Slavs among themselves,
An old domestic strife, already weighed by fate,
An issue not to be resolved by you.

Long since among themselves

These tribes have been at war;
More than once has bent beneath the storm
Now their, now our side.
Who will prevail in the unequal strife:
The boastful Lekh, or the faithful Ross?
Will the Slavonic streams converge in the Russian sea?
Will it dry up? Here is the question.

Leave us alone: you have not read
Those bloody tablets;
To you is unintelligible, to you is alien
This family feud;
Mute to you are the Kremlin and Praga;
Unthinkingly you are beguiled
By the valor of a desperate struggle -
And you hate us . . .

And for what? Reply: is it because
On the ruins of blazing Moscow
We did not acknowledge the insolent will
Of him under whom you quaked?
Because we hurled into the abyss
The idol heavy-looming over kingdoms,
And with our blood redeemed
Europe's freedom, honour, and peace?
You are menacing in words - just try to be in action!
Is then the old thane, resting on his bed,
Unfit to mount his bayonet of Ismail?
Or is the Russian Tsar's word powerless by now?
Or is it new to us to be at odds with Europe?
Or has the Russian grown unused to victories?
Are there too few of us? Or will, from Perm to Tauris,
From frigid crags of Finland to the flaming Colchis,
From the shaken Kremlin
To stagnant China's walls,
Flashing with steely bristle,
Not rise the Russian land?
Send then to us, oh, bards,
Your sons enraged:
There's room for them in Russia's fields,
'Mid graves that are not strange to them.