Vasíli Petróvich Petróv. (1736-1799.)
Petróv was the son of a poor clergyman. He studied in the Theological Academy at Moscow, where he was made a teacher in 1760. Through Potémkin, his friend, he was presented to the Empress, who, in 1768, appointed him her private translator and reader. In 1772 he was sent to England, where he soon acquired the language. In London he translated Milton’s Paradise Lost and made a careful study of Addison, especially of his Cato. Petróv wrote a large number of adulatory odes, now long forgotten; he showed more talent in his satires, which he wrote in England, and in which the influence of the English writers whom he studied may be perceived. The following ode, probably his best, is from Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.
ON THE VICTORY OF THE RUSSIAN OVER THE TURKISH FLEET[140]
O triumph! O delight! O time so rich in fame
Unclouded, bright and pure as the sun’s midday flame!
Ruthenia’s strength goes forth—see from the sea emerge
The Typhons of the north!—The lightning, in its might,
Flashes in dazzling light,—
And subject is the surge.
They wander o’er the waves,—their eye impatiently
Seeks where the Moslem’s flag flaunts proudly o’er the sea:—
“’Tis there! ’Tis there!” exclaim the brave, impatient crowd,—
The sails unfurled,—each soul with rage and courage burns,—
Each to the combat turns:
They meet,—it thunders loud!
I see from Ætna’s rocks a floating army throng:
A hero,[141] yet unsung, wafts the proud choir along,—
The masts, a fir-tree wood,—the sails, like outspread wings.
List to the shoutings! See the flash! They thunder near.
Earthquakes and night are there,—
With storm the welkin rings.
There January speeds,—there Svyatosláv moves on,
And waves and smoke alike are in the tempest thrown;
And there the ship that bears the three-times hallowed[142] name,
And Rostisláv and Europe, there triumphant ride;
While the agitated tide
Is startled with the flame.
Evstáf, in fire concealed, scatters the deathlike brand,
And earth and heaven are moved, and tremble sea and land;
And there, a mountain pile, sends round the deeds of death,
As if Vesuvius’ self in combat were engaged,—
While other mountains raged,
And poured their flaming breath.
The roar, the whiz, the hum, in one commingling sound,
The clouds of smoke that rise, and spread and roll around;
The waves attack the sky in wild and frenzied dance;
The sails are white as snow; and now the sun looks on,
Now shrouds him on his throne,
And the swift lightnings glance.
Hard proof of valour this,—the spirit’s fiery test:
Fierce combat, grown more fierce,—bear high the burning breast!
See on the waves there ride two mountains, fiery-bound,
Ætna and Hecla, loose on ocean’s heaving bed,—
The burning torches spread,
And ruin stalks around.
Ocean, and shore, and air, rush backward at the sight,
The Greek and Turk stand still, and groan in wild affright;
Calm as a rock the Russ is welcoming death with death;
But ah! destruction now blazes its fiery links,
And even victory sinks
Its heavy weight beneath.
O frightful tragedy! A furnace is the sea,—
The triumph ours,—the flames have reached the enemy:
He burns, he dies in smoke, beneath the struggle rude
The Northern heroes sink, with weariness oppressed,
And ask a moment’s rest,
As if they were subdued.
And whence that threatening cloud that hangs upon their head?
That threatens now to burst? What? Is their leader dead?
And is he borne away, who all our bosoms warmed?
He fell,—there lies his sword,—there lie his shield and helm.
What sorrows overwhelm
The conqueror disarmed!
Oh, no! He wakes again from night,—he waves his hand,
Beckoning to the brave ranks that mourning round him stand:
“My brother!” cried he—“Heaven! And is my brother gone?
Their sails unfurl! My friends, oh, see! oh, see! They fly,—
On,—‘Death or vengeance!’ cry,
On, on to Stamboul’s throne!”
He fled. O hero! Peace! There is no cause for grief,—
He lives,—thy brother lives, and Spiridóv, his chief!
No dolphin saved them there,—it was the Almighty God,
The God who sees thy deed, thy valour who approves,
And tries the men He loves
With His afflictive rod.
The dreadful dream is passed,—passed like a mist away,
And dawns, serene and bright, a cloudless victory day:
The trump of shadeless joy,—the trump of triumph speaks;
The hero and his friend are met, and fled their fears;
They kiss each other’s cheeks,
They water them with tears.
They cried, “And is our fame, and is our glory stained?
God is our shield,—revenge and victory shall be gained!
We live,—and Mahmud’s might a hundred times shall fall;
We live,—the astonished world our hero-deeds shall see,
And every victory
A burning fleet recall.”
Whence this unusual glare o’er midnight’s ocean spread?
At what unwonted hour has Phœbus left his bed?
No, they are Russian crowds who struggle with the foe,
’Tis their accordant torch that flashes through the night.
Sequana, see the might
Of Stamboul sink below!
The harbour teems with life, an amphitheatre
Of sulphurous pitch and smoke, and awful noises there.
The fiends of hell are loose, the sea has oped its caves,
Fate rides upon the deep, and laughs amidst the fray,
Which feeds with human prey
The monsters of the waves.
See, like a furnace boils and steams the burning flood,
’Tis filled with mortal flesh, ’tis red with mortal blood;
Devoured by raging flames, drunk by the thirsty wave,
The clouds seem palpable,—a thick and solid mass,—
They sink like stone or brass
Into their water-grave.
Thou ruler of the tomb! Dread hour of suffering,
When all the elements,—drop, Muse, thy feeble wing!—
Hell, with its fiends, and all the fiends that man e’er drew
There mingled,—Silence, veil that awful memory o’er!
I see the hero pour
The tears of pity too!
O Peter! Great in song, as great in glory once,
Look from thy throne sublime upon thy Russia’s sons!
See, how thy fleets have won the palm of victory,
And hear the triumph sound, even to the gate of heaven,—
The Turkish strength is riven
Even in the Turkish sea.
Thee Copenhagen saw, the Neptune of the Belt;
Now Chesma’s humbled sons before thy flag have knelt.
The helpless Greeks have fled,—thy banner sees their shore,
Trembling they look around, while thy dread thunder swells,
And shakes the Dardanelles,
And Smyrna hears its roar.
Ye Frenchmen![143] Fear ye not the now advancing flame,
Recording, as it flies, your own, your country’s shame?
In the dark days of old, your valiant fathers trod
In the brave steps of Rome, towards lands of Southern glow;
Ye fight with Russians now,
Beneath the Moslems’ rod.
Where innocence is found, there, there protection wakes;
Where Catherine’s voice is heard,—there truth, there justice speaks:
A ruler’s virtues are the strength and pride of states,
And surely ours shall bloom where Catherine’s virtues stand.
O enviable land!
Glory is at our gates.
Soar, eagle, soar again, spring upward to the flight!
For yet the Turkish flag is flaunting in the light:
In Chesma’s port it still erects its insolent head,
And thou must pour again thy foes’ blood o’er the sea,
And crush their treachery,
And wide destruction spread!
But fame now summons thee from death to life again,
The people’s comfort now, their glory to maintain;
The hero’s palm is won.—Now turn thee and enhance
The hero’s triumphs with the patriot’s milder fame.
O Romans! Without shame
On Duil’s spoils we glance.
We’ll consecrate to thee a towering marble dome!
From yonder Southern sea, oh, bring thy trophies home,
Bring Scio’s trophies home,—those trophies still shall be
Thy glory, Orlóv! Thine the records of thy deeds,
When future valour reads
Astrea’s victory!
Oh, could my wakened Muse a worthy offering bring!
Oh, could my grateful lyre a song of glory sing!
Oh, could I steal from thee the high and towering thought,
With thy proud name the world, the listening world I’d fill!
And Camoens’ harp be still,
And Gama be forgot!
Thine was a nobler far than Jason’s enterprise,
Whose name shines like a star in history’s glorious skies:
He bore in triumph home the rich, the golden fleece;
But with thy valour thou, and with thy conquering band,
Hast saved thy fatherland,
And given to Hellas peace.
But oh! My tongue is weak to celebrate thy glory,
Thy valiant deeds shall live in everlasting story,
For public gratitude thy name will e’er enshrine,—
Who loves his country, who his Empress loves, will throw
His garland on thy brow,
And watch that fame of thine.
But when thou humbledst low the Moslem’s pride and scorn,
And bad’st her crescent sink, her vain and feeble horn,
And pass’dst the Belt again, with songs and hymns of joy,
Who that perceived thy flag, in all its mightiness,—
What Russian could repress
The tears that dimmed his eye?
I see the people rush to welcome thee again,
Thy ships, with trophies deep, upon the swelling main;
I see the maidens haste, the aged and the young;
The children wave their hands, and to their father turn,
And thousand questions burn
On their inquiring tongue.
“Is this the eagle proud of whom we have been told,
Who led against the Turks the Russian heroes bold,
And with their warriors’ blood the azure ocean dyed?
Is this our Orlóv,—this with eagle’s heart and name,
His foe’s reproach and shame,
And Russia’s strength and pride?”
Oh, yes! Oh, yes, ’tis he! The eagle there appears,
And ocean bears him on, as proud of him she bears:
And see his brother too, who led to victory, there—
And Spirídov, whose praise all ages shall renew,
And Greyg and Ilín too,—
The heroes, without fear.
But wherefore do I rest,—what fancies led me on?
The glorious eagle now to Asia’s coast is flown,
O’er streams, and hills, and vales, he takes his course sublime,
My eye in vain pursues his all-subduing flight.
O vision of delight!
O victory-girded time!
And heaven, and earth, and sea have seen our victories won,
And echo with the deeds that Catherine has done;
The Baltic coasts in vain oppose the march of Paul,
Not the vast North alone, but all th’ Ægean Sea
Shall own his sovereignty,
And the whole earthly ball!
FOOTNOTES:
[140] At Chesma, where, on July 26, 1770, the Turkish fleet was destroyed.
[141] Count Orlóv, commander of the fleet.
[142] Ship named The Three Saints.
[143] An agent of the French Government had fortified the Dardanelles.