To Gnedich
With Homer you conversed alone for days and nights,
Our waiting hours were passing slowly,
And shining you came down from the mysterious heights
And brought to us your tablets holy -
So? in the wilderness, beneath a tent, you found
Us, feasting mad in empty gaiety,
Singing our savage songs and galloping around
Some newly hand-created deity.
We grew confused, aloof from your good rays hid we.
Then, seized of wrath and desolation,
Have you, O prophet, cursed your mindless family And smashed your tablets in frustration?
No, you have cursed us not. From heights you disappear
Into the shade of little valleys;
You love the heavens' crash, but also wish to hear
Bees humming over red azaleas.
Such is the honest bard. With passion he laments
At solemn fairs of Melpomena -
To smile upon the crowd's plebeian merriments,
The liberties of coarse arena.
Now Rome is calling him, now majesties of Troy,
Now elder Ossian's craggy gravels -
And in the meantime he will hear with childish joy
Of Czar Sultan's heroic travels.