See, it comes—the hour thou fearest!
Hour escapeless! We must part!
Haply now I press thee, dearest,
For the last time, to my heart.
Angel mild and unrepining,
Gently breathe a fond farewell—
Thy soft eyes, through tear-drops shining,
Raised or lower'd—shall be my spell:
And thy memory abiding,
To my spirit shall restore
The hope, the pride, the strong confiding
Of my youthful days once more.
Perhaps our readers would like to see a Russian Sonnet. To many the name of such a thing will seem a union of two contradictory terms; but, nevertheless, here is a sonnet, and not a bad one either.
The Madonna.
With mighty pictures by the Great of Old
Ne'er did I long to deck my cell, intending
That visitors should gape and peer, commending
In Connoisseurship's jargon quaint and cold.
One picture only would I aye behold
On these still walls, 'mid these my toils unending;
One, and but one: From mists of cloudy gold
The Virgin Mother, o'er her Babe-God bending—
Her eyes with grandeur, His with reason bright—
Should calm look down, in glory and in light,
While Sion's palm beside should point to heaven.
And God hath granted this fond prayer of mine:
Thou, my Madonna, thou to me wert given,
Divinest form of beauty most divine!