Prince Iván Mikháylovich Dolgorúki. (1764-1823.)
Iván Mikháylovich Dolgorúki was the grandson of Prince Iván Aleksyéevich, the favourite of Peter II. (see p. 233). In 1791 he left the army with the rank of brigadier. He was then made Vice-Governor of Pénza, where he sought relief from the humdrum life of a provincial town in reading and in writing poetry. One of the first of his poems to attract attention was the envoi To my Lackey; he became universally known through his My Penza Fireplace. In 1802 he was appointed Governor of Vladímir. Not long after his return to Moscow he was forced to retire before the advancing Frenchmen. During his retreat he wrote his Lament of Moscow. His best poem is probably his Legacy. While not a poet of the first order, Dolgorúki displayed great originality and much depth of feeling. This is what he himself said of his poems: “In my poems I wished to preserve all the shades of my feelings, to see in them, as in a picture, the whole history of my heart, its agitation, the change in my manner of thinking, the progress of my thoughts in the different ages of my life, and the gradual development of my small talents. Every verse reminds me of some occurrence, or thought, or mood that influenced me at such and such a moment.... That is the key to the originality which many are so kind as to ascribe to my productions.” The Legacy was translated by Sir John Bowring.
THE LEGACY
When time’s vicissitudes are ended,
Be this, be this my place of rest;
Here let my bones with earth be blended,
Till sounds the trumpet of the blest.
For here, in common home, are mingled
Their dust, whom fame or fortune singled;
And those whom fortune, fame passed by,
All mingled, and all mouldering;—folly
And wisdom, mirth and melancholy,
Slaves, tyrants,—all mixt carelessly.
List! ’Tis the voice of time,—Creation’s
Unmeasured arch repeats the tone;
Look! E’en like shadows, mighty nations
Are born, flit by us, and are gone!
See! Children of a common father,
See stranger-crowds, like vapours gather;
Sires, sons, descendants, come and go.
Sad history! Yet e’en there the spirit
Some joys may build, some hopes inherit,
And wisdom gather flowers from woe.
There, like a bee-swarm, round the token
Of unveiled truth shall sects appear,
And evil’s poisonous sting be broken
In the bright glance of virtue’s spear.
And none shall ask, what dormitory
Was this man’s doom, what robes of glory
Wore he, what garlands crowned his brow,—
Was pomp his slave?—Come now, discover
The heart, the soul,—Delusion’s over,—
What was his conduct?—Answer now!
Where stands yon hill-supported tower,
By Fili, shall I wake again,
Summoned to meet Almighty Power
In judgment, like my fellow-men.
I shall be there, and friends and brothers,
Sisters and children, fathers, mothers,—
With joy that never shall decay;
The soul, substantial blessing beaming
(All here is shadowy and seeming),
Drinks bliss no time can sweep away.
Friends, on my brow that rests when weary
Erect no proud and pompous pile:
Your monuments are vain and dreary,
Their splendour cannot deck the vile.
A green grave, by no glare attended,
With other dust and ashes blended,
Oh, let my dust and ashes lie!
There, as I sleep, Time, never sleeping,
Shall gather ages to his keeping,
For such is nature’s destiny.
My wife, my children shall inherit
All I possessed,—’twas mine, ’tis theirs;
For death, that steals the living spirit,
Gives all earth’s fragments to its heirs.
Send round no circling-briefs of sorrow,
No garments of the raven borrow;
’Tis idle charge, ’tis costly pride.
Be gay, through rain and frosty weather,
Nor gather idle priests together
To chant my humble grave beside.
Cry, orphans! Cry, ye poor! imploring
The everlasting God, that He
May save me when I sink, adoring,
Amidst His boundless mercy-sea.
My blessing to my foes be given,
Their curses far from me be driven,
Nor break upon my hallowed bliss;
God needs no studied words from mortals,
A sigh may enter Heaven’s wide portals,—
He could not err, He taught us this.
No songs, no elegy,—death hearkens
To music ne’er though sweet it be:
When o’er you night’s oblivion darkens,
Then let oblivion shadow me.
No verse will soften Hades’ sadness,
No verse can break on Eden’s gladness,
’Tis all parade and shifting glare:—
A stream, where scattered trees are growing,
A secret tear, in silence flowing,
No monument as these so fair.
Such slumber here, their memory flashes
Across my thoughts.—Hail, sister, hail!
I kiss thy sacred bed of ashes,
And soon shall share thy mournful tale.
Thou hast paid thy earthly debts,—’tis ended,
Thy cradle and thy tomb are blended,
The circle of thy being run;
And now in peace thy history closes,
And thy stilled, crumbling frame reposes
Where life’s short, feverish play is done.
I live and toil,—my thoughts still follow
The idle world:—my care pursue
Dreams and delusions, baseless, hollow,
And vanities still false, though new.
Then fly I earthly joys, I find them
Leave terror-working stings behind them:
“Beware, beware!” experience cries;
Yet ah! how faint the voice of duty,
One smile of yonder flattering beauty
Would make me waste even centuries.
—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.
MY MOSCOW FIREPLACE
Scarcely have we seen summer, behold, winter is here! The frosts drive us into our rooms, and will for a long time keep us within. Nature’s beauty is changed, and dimmed by the veil of night. Oh, what shall I do? What begin? I will move up to my dear fireplace, and will share with it, as before, my melancholy.
Whatever countries I have been in, whether my house was large or small, whether I paraded in high palace halls, or retired to my apartments,—the fireplace, my winter benefactor, was everywhere the witness of my acts: whole days I passed with it alone; pining, sorrows and annoyances, consolation, pleasure, joy,—my fireplace has experienced them all.
Whenever I mentally survey all human lots in this world, and by the fireplace in my study judge of humanity, I with difficulty can harmonise in my imagination the opinions of happiness that are common to all. The whole world lives in a noise and din; but what does it find in place of happiness? New causes for worriment.
Kings, of their own free will, leave the throne and hasten to arms; in their elevated place they not seldom curse their lives. No matter how boyárs grow stout, they also pale in their good fortune, like their lowest slave. He in his unbounded sphere, the other in his earth hut, or cave,—both are weak against the attack.
Everywhere they have written of happiness, and will always prate about it, but they have nowhere found it. Yes, ’tis difficult to attain! And I, though a simple man, can also like a philosopher aver it is within me; but where, and how to find it?—I do not know! In sorrow I suffer openly; whenever I am merry, ’tis as if in a dream.
Protesting against the evil of the passions, knitting his brow, like Cato, when all is quiet in his soul, the philosopher proclaims his law: “Why be enslaved by passions? We must submit to reason. All our desires are an empty dream; all upon earth, O men, is transitory: seek eternal happiness in Heaven, for the world is vanity of vanities.
“If one dish satisfies your hunger, why have three? If you have a caftan, what is the use of five? What need is there of a pile of money? When you die, you will not take it with you. Contract the limits of your necessities, flee from the city into the country, live quietly your allotted time, with equanimity bear insults, magnanimously suffer sorrow, be more than man!”
What are you yourself, my teacher? Are you a god, or an angel in the flesh? Guardian of deep wisdom, permit me to look within you! Reveal to us not your mind alone, but your feelings, announce to us without ambiguity: are you yourself? I see, you are a vain hypocrite: you do not believe your own sermon, you are an empty-sounding cymbal.
Oh, if people all lived as reason bids them! If feelings were more gentle, if the fount of blood did not boil,—how nice life would be! All would be peace and security, and love the tie of all the lands; people would not devour each other; and a Frenchman, an Arab, a Mussulman would live in harmony together.
Oh, if ... I need but place this word at the head, and my pen creates at once a new earth, nay, heaven. All kingdoms will flow with abundance, all men will be equally strong, nowhere there shall be snow, nor winter, but flowers will grow the year around, and we will not run to the fireplace,—we shall be regenerated.
Oh no! I am sorry for the fireplace! Let us leave all as it is: we cannot reproduce what my reason has evoked. Let the sphere circle around, and let each various chimera disport with every mind! The Creator will turn all for the best: to-day the chill disturbs us, but the thunder of the summer does not terrify us.
I hear at all times of the good qualities of countrymen, what beautiful lives they lead, and how the law of nature is not trampled upon by them. “Their manners,” they assert, “are coarser, but their amusements are incomparably simpler than ours: they live in freedom with each other, do not drink nor eat according to the fashion.” ’Tis not true!
When we listen to serenades on a beautiful summer day, while limpid waterfalls make a rippling noise, and the shade of cedars protects us from the heat, the peasant hitches his horse to the plough and tears up the earth, or hauls a log, or, if it be winter, looks through dim windows, through which nothing can be seen, at the blizzard without.
Fireplace, I will not exchange you for all the treasures of the lords! You are often my consolation, and always pleasant and agreeable to me. Let sorrows be inevitable: joy is coextensive with them. You are the throne of my amusements; but I am satisfied with my books; I feel with them neither pain, nor think my room small, and I read them as my spirit prompts me.
But when I leave my book, and fix my eyes upon the fireplace, with what pleasure I recall the host of various incidents! I at once reproduce in my mind the picture of my youth, and the progress and cause of my cares; I even now, as it were, glance to the north, and south, and the capital, and the Finland border.
I accuse myself before thee, my Lord! I have in vain killed my youth; carried on the wave of habit, I have given my days and nights to dreaming. I, tossed now hither, now thither, hastened to make new acquaintances, and thought: “This is all a loan I make; some day the debt, I am sure, will be duly returned to me.”
’Tis time to adapt myself to the custom! I shall soon be forty years old: it is time to learn from experience that to judge people rightly, to know this world, to seek friends is a self-deception and vain endeavour of the heart. The measure of human indifference is in our days full to overflowing; ask for no examples: alas! there are too many of them.
In your presence all will praise you, but let there be an occasion for helping you, and your worth will be depreciated, or without saying a word they will walk away. If one be cunning, he will so oppress you that he will compel you to think all your life of him in tears; if he be foolish, he will, wherever he may meet you, cast a heap of stones before you and bar your way.
From all such evils my consolation art Thou, only God, God of all creation! I need nothing more, for I expect no happiness from men. A hundredfold more pleasant it is, staying at home, and not perceiving in it the temptations of the world, to live simply with your family and, modestly passing your time and vigorously communing with reason, to stir the wood in the fireplace.