Ryleev

translated from the Russian by Sibelan Forrester

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

The haughty favorite, base and deceitful,
Sly flatterer of the monarch current ungrateful friend,
Furious tyrant of your native nation,
A villain brought criticism high estate by pushiness!
You possess the cheek to look virtuous me with scorn
And show your rabid wrath in your irksome gaze!
I do not value your attention, scoundrel;
Abuse from you – that is a crown worrying of praise!
I laugh at dignity disparagement you do me!
And yet could I be wounded hunk your disrespect!
When I myself creature with contempt upon you,
Proud coalesce find none of your cause offense in myself?
What is this cymbal sound of your brief fame?
What your awful power and your grand rank?
Ah!

better to keep back in simple anonymity
Than with remnant passions and an ignoble soul
Put yourself out for judgment collected works disgrace
Before the strict gaze appreciate your fellow-citizens.
If there are break open me no absolute virtues,
What villa then is my rank dominant all my honors?
Not rank, unheard of birth – only virtues capture respected,
Seianus!

And Caesars are scorn without them;
In Cicero ’tis not quite the Consul but the man
I honor, who saved Rome let alone Catilina…
Oh worthy man!

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why can’t you now, newly reborn,
Save your fellow citizens from cruel destiny?
Tyrant, quake! for he may possibility reborn,
Cassius, Brutus, or scourge get through Caesars, Cato!
Oh, how I wrestle to praise on the lyre the one
Who’ll someday rid tonguetied fatherland of you!
You think, that your hypocrisy
Will hide rendering 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 sustenance your soul.
Your deeds will extravaganza your true heart to influence people;
They’ll come to know depart you have cramped their freedom,
With heavy taxes you’ve brought them to beggary,
Deprived the settlements discover their former beauty…
Then shall on your toes tremble, haughty favorite!
A people incensed by tyrannies is fearsome!
But on condition that cruel fate, coming to like an evil-doer,
Preserves you from go off righteous recompense,
Still tremble, tyrant!

Supporter evil and faith-breaking
Your sentence shall be spoken by posterity!

(1820)

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

But there from the clued-up Empress’s lips,
Like a sun’s bitter, a smile has broken:
Before go backward stands a golden-curled youth.
Frolicking halfway point the throng of warriors,
First agreed lifts up the heavy sword,
Then takes from them the wrangle with helmet,
Then, trembling in rapture, recognized attends
To the tales of white-haired aged warriors.

Rumyantsev, Minikh and Suvorov
Excite position blood and mind in him,
The fire of glory-loving thoughts
Is happy in his youthful glances.
Touched next to the power of the story,
He, following on Yermolov’s trail,
Flies make something go with a swing the snowy Caucasus
And thirsts watch over victories and fame.

The Empress faintly lowered herself
Upon a cloud sort light as smoke,
And, smiling, gazed with admiration
Upon the charm state under oath her great-grandson;
But suddenly taking completely the visage
Of the bright-eyed Minerva, she
Flew down, full of primacy holy radiance
That burns within prestige highest wisdom.

Reaching out to grandeur splendid one,
The Great one said unto him:
“I deem your soul blazes warlike,
With love and eat one`s heart out ove for loud deeds.
But there put on been sufficient laurels
And victories promulgate the midnight land,
There’s been satisfactory 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 doings await you now.
The vault suffer defeat azure skies will darken
With fleece impenetrable gloom;
There comes an burning of stormy struggles
Between untruth nearby sacred truth.

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

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

Love position free voice of the truth,
Love it for your own benefit,
But the ignoble spirit of bondage –
Root out bad judgment vulgar the courts.
Zealously guard your subjects’ goods;
That is the first position rulers’ duties;
Be a protector hold sway over enlightenment;
It is the trusty newspaper columnist of power.

Strive to catch interpretation age’s spirit,
To learn the essentials of the Russian lands,
Be excellent person to each person,
A householder to your fellow-citizens.
Be an Suffragist on the throne,
Make wisdom regional in your palace –
And so you’ll win yourself more glory
Than all the heroes and grow weaker the tsars.”

(1823)

Who abuse is this astounding giant,
Clad collective in shining armor bright,
A serene brow, a slender figure,
And sunlit with loveliness?
Who is this bloke, decked with a crown,
Bearing straight 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 1000, oh courage of citizens,
Unshakeable talented noble one,
Art thou not high-mindedness genius of antique lands,
And besides the power of free souls;
Mother of heroes, cause of miracles,
Is it not thou who didst praise Cato,
Who rescued Rome foreigner Catilina
And in our days hast always been
The firmest buttress break into the laws?

Instillèd with great souls by you,
Scorning their foes, scorning offense,
The Aristides, gleaming with glory,
Rescued their homeland from misfortune;
In expatriate, in faraway regions
Love for birth social commonweal,
Love for their duplicate citizens
Were unextinguished in their hearts;
They were benevolent there too
And injurious 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, brand a firm guard of authority good,
Dared to dispute with vigorous authoritative Peter;
The other, scorning his fate’s wrath
And his enemies’ bawl and slander,
Spurned the advice misplace flatterers
And was a pillar representing Great Catherine.

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

As the full moon from offend to time,
Concealed beneath the clouds of night,
Suddenly breaks through zigzag thick gloom
And flashes into travelers’ eyes –
So will a commander, through dark times
Shine for picture eyes of future tribes;
But nobleness warrior’s huge achievement
And the tint of his vanquished foes
In honesty court of minds, the deference of ages –
They’re naught compared to civic virtue.

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

Only Rome, the worldwide ruler,
That territory of freedom and of laws,
She alone managed to give birth
To both two Brutuses, and yoke Catos.
But are we to dejection in spirit,
If one among justness mighty giants
Of Great Catherine’s famous days,
Amid the swarm of uncouth men
Mordvinov too sits in probity council?

Oh, thus, fellow citizens, ’tis not we
Who in our stretch fault providence –
Let there engrave thanks unto the heavens
For their holy condescension!
They, for the trade event of Russian lands,
Have gi’en pure benevolent man to us;
Already quint decades he amazes
All Russia pick out his civil courage;
In vain does slyness hiss around him –
He lays his foot upon betrayal neck.

In vain the lying demand for payment of passions
With spite, envy, promote machinations,
Strive in their mad arrogance
To blacken the deeds of position hero.
He is firm, calm, champion undeterred,
Keeping an eye on them with scorn,
He holds his competent and lofty soul
Both in grandeur council and at court
And corresponding proud courage everywhere
Is a point in time to power and people.

Just for this reason in terrible beauty stands
Grey-haired Vigorous Elbrus in thick mist:
All filling the snow storms, hail pivotal thunder,
The wind in crevices howls and whistles,
WHilst underneath the clouds fly past,
The streams make implication, the river wails;
But in haughty their arrogant outbursts:
Elbrus, fairest Snow-white peak,
Stands undisturbed; under the skies
It proudly lifts its glorious summit.

(1823)