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

For his belongings; he would roam,
A stranger to the world; his ration
A morsel tendered in compassion
Out of a window; he would tramp
All day, and on the quay would camp
To sleep; his garments, old and fraying,
Were all in tatters and decaying.
And the malicious boys would pelt
The man with stones; and of the felt
The cabman’s whiplash on him flicking;
For he had lost the skill of picking
His footsteps, – deafened, it may be,
By fears that clamored inwardly.
So, dragging out his days, ill-fated,
He seemed like something mistreated,
No beast, nor yet of human birth,
Neither a denizen of earth
Nor phantom of the dead.
Belated
One night, on Neva wharf he slept.
Now summer days toward autumn crept;
A wet and stormy wind was blowing,
And Neva’s sullen waters flowing
Plashed on the wharf and muttered there
Complaining – beat the slippery stair
As suitors beat in supplication
Unheeded at a judge’s door.
In gloom and rain, amid the roar
Of winds, – a sound of desolation
With cries of watchmen interchanged
Afar, who through the darkness ranged, —
Our poor Evgeny woke; and dounted,
By well-remembered terrors haunted,
He started sharply, rose in haste,
And forth upon his wanderings paced;
– And halted on a sudden, staring
About him silently, and wearing
A look of wild alarm and awe.
Where had he come? For now he saw
The pillars of that lofty dwelling
Where, on the perron sentinelling,
Two lion-figures stand at guard
Like living things, keep watch and ward
With lifted paw. Upright and glooming,
Above the stony barrier looming,
The Image, with arm flung wide,
Sat on his brazen horse astride.[3 - See the description of the monument in Mickiewicz. It is borrowed from Ruban, as Mickiewicz himself observes (Pushkin’s note).]

And now Evgeny, with a shiver
Of terror, felt his reason clear.
He knew the place, for it was here
The flood had gamboled, here the river
Had surged; here, rioting in their wrath,
The wicked waves had swept a path
And with their tumult had surrounded
Evgeny, lions, square, – and Him
Who, moveless and aloft and dim,
Our city by the sea had founded,
Whose will was Fate. Appalling there
He sat begirt with and air.
What thoughts engrave his blow! What hidden
Power and authority he claims!
What fire in yonder charger flames!
Proud charger, whither art thou ridden,
Where leanest thou? And where, on whom,
Wilt plants thy hoof? – Ah, lord of doom
And potentate, ‘twas thus, appearing
Above the void, and in thy hold
A curb of iron, thou sat’st of old
O’er Russian, on her haunches rearing!

About the Image, at its base,
Poor mad Evgeny circled, straining
His wild gaze upward at the face
That once o’er half the world was reigning.
His eye was dimmed, cramped was his breast,
His brow on the cold grill was pressed,
While through his heart a flame was creeping
And in his veins the blood was leaping.
He halted sullenly beneath
The haughty Image, clenched his teeth
And clasped his hands, as though some devil
Possessed him, some dark, power of evil,
And shuddered, whispering angrily,
“Ay, architect, with thy creation
Of marvels… Ah, beware of me!”
And then, in wild precipitation
He fled.
For now he seemed to see
The awful Emperor, quietly,
With momentary anger burning,
His visage to Evgeny turning!
And rushing through the empty square,
He hears behind him as it were
Thunders that rattle in a chorus,
A gallop ponderous, sonorous,
That shakes the pavement. At full height,
Illumined by the pale moonlight,
With arm outflung, behind him riding
See, the bronze horseman comes, bestriding