The death of Leonid Andreef removes the most savage pessimist of all the pessimists who have come out of modern Russia. But the author of The Life of Man, The Seven that Were Hanged, and The Red Laugh was not a pessimist for pessimism's sake: he suffered and he expressed his suffering sincerely. One of his short stories—that which tells of a student and his girl who were overtaken by a band of ruffians in a wood—is perhaps the most ghastly story that has ever been written; yet the most revolted reader could not suppose that the author had been less revolted than himself. Andreef had refused enormous offers to work for the Bolsheviks, and died, in great poverty, from shock induced by a rain of Bolshevik bombs near his house.
POETRY
Ishak's Song[5]
[5] This song comes from Flecker's unpublished drama Hassan, which those who have seen it consider immeasurably the finest thing that he ever wrote. It has remained in manuscript since his death, awaiting stage production. His Yasmin is another song from the play, and his well-known Golden Journey to Samarkand is its epilogue. Ishak is the Court poet of Haroun-al-Raschid.
Thy dawn, O Master of the World, thy dawn,
The hour the lilies open on the lawn,
The hour the grey wings pass beyond the mountains,
The hour of silence when we hear the fountains,
The hour that dreams are brighter and winds colder,
The hour that young love wakes on a white shoulder,
O Master of the World, the Persian dawn!
This hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee:
Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea,
The braves who fight thy fight unsheath the sabre,
The slaves who toil thy toil are lashed to labour,
For thee the waggons of the world are drawn—
The ebony of night, the red of dawn!
JAMES ELROY FLECKER