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

And pavements now uncovered lay;
And our Evgeny, by dismay
And hope and longing agitated,
Sore-hearted to the river sped.
But still it lay disquieted
And still the wicked waves were seething
In pride of victory, as though
A flame was smoldering below;
And heavily was Neva breathing
Like to a horse besprent with foam
Who gallops from the battle home.

Evgeny watches, and descrying
By happy chance a boat, goes bluing
To hail the ferryman; and he,
Unhired and idle, willingly
Convoys him for a threepence, plying
Through that intimidating sea.
The old tried oarsman long contended
With the wild waters, hour by hour,
Sunk in the trough, the skiff descended
Mid rollers, ready to devour
Rash crew and all – at last contriving
To make the farther shore.
Arriving,
Evgeny – evil is his lot! —
Runs to the old street, – and knows it not.
All, to his horror, is demolished,
Leveled or ruined or abolished.
Houses are twisted all awry,
And some are altogether shattered,
Some shifted by the seas; and scattered
Are bodies, flung as bodies lie
On battlefields. Unthinkingly,
Half-fainting, and excruciated,
Evgeny rushes on, awaited
By destiny with unrevealed
Tidings, as in a letter sealed.

He scours the suburb; and discerning
The bay, he knows the house is near;
And then stops short, ah, what is here?
Retreating, and again returning,
He looks – advances – look again.
‘Tis there they dwelt, the marks are plain;
There is the willow. Surely yonder
The gate was standing, in the past;
Now, washt away! No house! – O’ercast
With care, behold Evgeny wander
Forever rounds and rounds the place,
And talk aloud, and strike his face
With his bare hand. A moment after,
He breaks into a roar of laughter.

The vapors of the night came down
Upon the terror-stricken town,
But all the people long debated
The doings of the day, and waited
And could not sleep. The morning light
From pale and weary clouds gleamed bright
On the still capital; no traces
Now of the woes of yesternight!
With royal purple it effaces
The mischief; all things are proceeding
In form and order as of old;
The people are already treading,
Impassive, in their fashion, cold,
Through the cleared thoroughfares, inheeding;
And now official folk forsake
Their last night’s refuge, as they make
Their way to duty. Greatly daring,
The huckster now takes heart, unbarring
His cellar, late the prey and sack
Of Neva, – hoping to get back
His heavy loss and wasted labor
Out of the pockets of his neighbor.
The drifted boats from each courtyard
Are carried.
To a certain bard,
A count, a favorite of heaven
To one Khvostov, the theme was given
To chant in his immortal song
How Neva’s shores had suffered wrong.

But my Evgeny, poor, sick fellow! —
Alas, the tumult in his brain
Had left him powerless to sustain
Those shocks of terror. For the bellow
Of riotous winds and Neva near
Resounded always in his ear;
A host of hideous thoughts attacked him,
A kind of nightmare rent and racked him,
And on he wandered silently;
And as the week, the month, went by,
Never came home. His habitation,
As time ran out, the landlord took,
And leased the now deserted nook
For a poor poet’s occupation.

Nor ever came Evgeny home