The bronze Horseman / Медный всадник. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Canals above their borders spouted.
Behold Petropol floating lie
Like Triton in the deep, waist-high!

A siege! The wicked waves, attacking
Climb thief-like through the windows;
backing,
The boats sternforemost smite the glass;
Trays with their soaking wrappage pass;
And timbers, roofs, and huts all shattered,
The wares of thrifty traders scattered,
And the pale beggar’s chattels small,
Coffins from sodden graveyards – all
Swim in the streets!
And contemplating
God’s wrath, the folk their doom are waiting.
All will be lost; ah, where shall they
Find food and shelter for today?
The glorious emperor, now departed,
In that grim year was sovereign
Of Russia still. He came, sick-hearted,
Out on his balcony, and in pain
He said: “No Tsar, with God, is master
Over God’s elements!” In thought
He sat, and gazed on the disaster
Sad-eyed, and on the evil wrought;
For now the squares with lakes
were studded,
Their torrents broad the streets
had flooded,
And now forlorn and islander
The palace seemed. The emperor said
One word: – and see, along the highways
His generals[2 - Count Miloradovich and Adjutant-General Benckendorff (Pushkin’s note).] hurrying, through the byways!
From city’s end to end they sped
Through storm and peril, bent on saving
The people, now in panic raving
And drowning in their houses there.

New-built, high up in Peter’s Square
A corner mansion then ascended;
And where its lofty perron ended
Two sentry lions stood at guard
Like living things, and kept their ward
With paw uplifted. Here, bare-headed,
Pale, rigid, arms across his breast,
Upon the creature’s marble crest
Sat poor Evgeny. But he dreaded
Nought for himself; he did not hear
The hungry rollers rising near
And on his very footsoles plashing,
Feel on his face the rainstorm lashing,
Or how the riotous, moaning blast
Had snatched his hat. His eyes were fast
Fixt on one spot in desperation
Where from the deeps in agitation
The wicked waves like mountains rose,
Where the storm howled, and round were driven
Fragments of wreck… There,
God in Heaven!
Hard by the bay should stand,
and close,
Alas, too close to the wild water,
A painless fence, a willow-tree,
And there a frail old house should be
Where dwelt a widow, with a daughter
Parasha – and his dream was she!
His dream – or was it but a vision,
All that he saw? Was life also
An idle dream which in derision
Fate sends to mock us here below?

And he, as though a man enchanted
And on the marble pinned and planted
Cannot descend, and round him lie
Only the waters. There, on high,
With Neva still beneath him churning,
Unshaken, on Evgeny turning
His back, and with an arm flung wide,
Behold the Image sit, and ride
Upon his brazen horse astride!

II

But now, with rack and ruin sated
And weary of her insolence
And uproar, Neva, still elated
With her rebellious turbulence,
Stole back, and left her booty stranded
And unregarded. So a bandit
Bursts with his horde upon a village
To smash an slay, destroy and pillage;
Whence yells, and violence, and alarms,
Gritting of teeth, and grievous harms
And wailing’s; then the evildoers
Rush home; but dreading the pursuers
And sagging with the stolen load
They drop their plunder on the road.

Meanwhile the water had abated