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

The charger, clanging in his flight.
All night the madman flees; no matter
Where he may wander at his will,
Hard on his track with heavy clatter
There the bronze horseman gallops still.

Thereafter, whensoever straying
Across that square Evgeny went
By chance, his face was still betraying
Disturbance and bewilderment.
As though to ease a heart tormented
His hand upon it he would clap
In haste, put off his shabby cap,
And never raise his eyes demented,
And seek some byway unfrequented.

A little island lies in view
Along the shore; and here, belated,
Sometimes with nets a fisher-crew
Will moor and cook their long awaited
And meagre supper. Hither too
Some civil servant, idly floating,
Will come upon a Sunday, boating.
That isle is desolate and bare;
No blade of grass springs anywhere.
Once the great flood has sported, driving
The frail hut thither. Long surviving,
It floated on the water there
Like some black bush. A vessel plying
Bore it, last spring, upon her deck.
They found it empty, all the wreck;
And also, cold and dead and lying
Upon the threshold, they had found
My crazy hero. In the ground
His poor cold body there they hurried,
And left it to God’s mercy, buried.

Ruslan and Ludmila

Dedication

For you, queens of my soul, my treasured
Young beauties, for your sake did I
Devote my golden hours of leisure
To writing down, I’ll not deny,
With faithful hand of long past ages
The whispered fables… Take them, pray,
Accept these playful lines, these pages
For which I ask no praise… But stay!
For my reward – I need not seek it —
Is hope: Oh, that some girl should scan,
As only one who’s lovesick can,
These naughty songs of mine in secret!

Prologue

On seashore far a green oak towers,
And to it with a gold chain bound,
A learned cat whiles away the hours
By walking slowly round and round.
To right he walks, and sings a ditty;
To left he walks, and tells a tale…

What marvels there! A mermaid sitting
High in a tree, a sprite, a trail
Where unknown beasts move never seen by
Man’s eyes, a hut on chicken feet,
Without doors, without windows,
An evil witch’s lone retreat;
The woods and valleys there are teeming
With strange things… Dawn brings waves that, gleaming,
Over the sandy beaches creep,
And from the clear and shining water
Step thirty goodly knights escorted
By their Old Guardian, of the deep
An ancient dweller… There a dreaded
And hated tsar is captive ta’en;
There, as all watch, for cloud banks headed,
Across the sea and o’er a plain,
A warlock bears a knight. There, weeping,
A princess sits locked in a cell,
And Grey Wolf serves her very well;
There, in a mortar, onward sweeping
All of itself, beneath the skies
The wicked Baba-Yaga flies;
There pines Koshchei and lusts for gold…
All breathes of Russ, the Russ of old
There once was I, friends, and the сat
As near him ’neath the oak I sat
And drank of sweet mead at my leisure,
Recounted tales to me… With pleasure
One that I liked do I recall
And here and now will share with all…

Canto the First

The ways and deeds of days gone by,
A narrative on legend founded…

In princely banquet chamber high,