The Demon / Демон. Книга для чтения на английском языке

An Eastern Legend

Part I

I

His way above the sinful earth
The melancholy Demon winged
And memories of happier days
About his exiled spirit thronged;
Of days when in the halls of light
He shone among the angels bright;
When comets in their headlong flight
Would joy to pay respect to him
As, chaste among the cherubim,
Among th' eternal nebulae
With eager mind and quick surmise
He'd trace their caravanserai
Through the far spaces of the skies;
When he had known both faith and love,
The happy firstling of creation!
When neither doubt nor dark damnation
Had whelmed him with the bitterness
Of fruitless exile year by year,
And when so much, so much… but this
Was more than memory could bear.

II

Outcast long since, he wandered lone,
Having no place to call his own,
Through the dull desert of the world
While age on age about him swirled,
Minute on minute – all the same.
Prince of this world – which he held cheap —
He scattered tares among the wheat…
A joyless task without remission,
Void of excitement, opposition —
Evil itself to him seemed tame.

III

And so – exiled from Paradise —
He soared above the peaks of ice
And saw the everlasting snows
Of Kazbek and the Caucasus,
And, serpentine, the winding deeps
Of that black, dragon-haunted pass
The Daryal gorge; then the wild leaps
Of Terek like a lion bounding
With mane of tangled spray that blows
Behind him, and a great roar sounding
Through all the hills, where beast and bird
On mountain scree and azure steeps
The river's mighty voice had heard;
And, as he flew, the golden clouds
Streaked from the South in tattered shrouds…
Companions on his Northbound course;
And the great cliffs came crowding in
And brooded darkly over him
Exuding some compelling force
Of somnolence above the stream…
And on the cliff-tops castles reared
Their towered heads and baleful stared
Out through the mists – wardens who wait
Colossal at the mighty gate
Of Caucasus – and all about
God's world lay wonderful and wild…
But the proud Spirit looked with doubt
And cool contempt on God's creation,
His brow unruffled and serene
Admitting no participation.

IV

Before him now another scene
In vivid beauty blooms.
The patterned vales' luxuriant green
Spread like a carpet on the looms
Of Georgia, rich and blessed ground!
These poplars like great pillars tower,
And sounding streams trip over pebbles
Of many colours in their courses.
And, ember-bright, the rose trees flower
Where nightingales forever warble
To marble beauties fond discourses
Forever deaf to their sweet sound.
On sultry days the timid deer
Seek out an ivy-curtained cave
To hide them from the midday heat;
How bright, how live the leaves are here!
A hundred voices soft conclave
A thousand flower-hearts that beat!
The sensuous warmth of afternoon,
The scented dew which falls to strew
The grateful foliage 'neath the moon,
The stars that shine as full and bright
As Georgian beauties' eyes by night!..
Yet in the outcast's barren breast
Abundant nature woke no new