Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845

The supposed soliloquy of the martyred poet, which forms the principal portion of Púshkin's elegiac ode, is little else than an amplification, or pathetic and dignified paraphrase, of the exquisite composition actually written by Chénier on the eve of his execution; a composition become classical in the French literature:—

"Comme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier zephyr
Anime le soir d'un beau jour,
Au pied de l'échafaud j'essaie encore ma lyre."

Of the few persons to whom allusion is made in the verses, Abel, Fanny, and the Captive Maid, all that it is necessary to know is, that the first was one of his friends, the companion of his early happiness, and the fellow-labourer of his early studies—"Abel, doux confidant de mes jeunes mystères;" the second, one of his mistresses; and the third, a young lady, Mlle. de Coigny, who was for some time his fellow-prisoner, and the person to whom the poet addressed the touching verses which we have mentioned above. Mlle. de Coigny was the "Jeune Captive."

In justification of the very emphatic tone in which Púshkin has recorded the noble generosity and self-sacrifice which conducted Chénier to the revolutionary scaffold, it will be sufficient to quote the words of De la Touche, and to refer the reader to Chénier's Iambics, which drew down upon his head, and with good cause, the hatred and suspicion of Robespierre and his subordinate demons:—"Chénier avait mérité la haine des factieux. Il avait célébré Charlotte Corday, flétri Collot d'Herbois, attaqué Robespierre. On sait que le Roi avait demandé à l'Assemblée par une lettre pleine de calme et de dignité, le droit d'appeler au peuple du jugement qui le condamnait. Cette lettre, signée dans la nuit du 17 au 18 Janvier, est d'André Chénier."—H. De la Touche.

The unfortunate poet was executed on the 8th of Thermidor; i.e. the day before the fall of Robespierre. The fatal tumbril which bore Chénier to the guillotine, conveyed also to the same scaffold the poet Roucher, his friend:—"Ils parlèrent de la poesie à leurs derniers moments; pour eux, après l'amitiè, c'était la plus belle chose de la terre. Racine fût l'objet de leur entretien et de leur derrière admiration. Ils voulurent réciter ses vers; ils choisirent la prémière scène d'Andromaque."—H. de la Touche.

At the place of execution, Chénier struck his forehead with his hand, and exclaimed—"Pourtant j'avais quelque chose là!"

André Chénier

"Ainsi, triste et captif, ma lyre toutefois S'éveillait."

While earth, with wonderment and fear,
O'er Byron's urn is sadly bending,
And unto Europe's dirge its ear
By Dante's side his shade is lending,

Another shade my voice doth crave,
Who erst, unsung, unwept, unfriended,
In the grim Terror-days descended
From the red scaffold, to the grave.

Love, Peace, the Woodlands, did inspire
That Poet's dreams, sublime and free;
And to that Bard a stranger's lyre
Shall ring—shall ring to him and thee.

The lifted axe—what! cannot slaughter tire?—
For a new victim calls again.
The bard is ready; hark, his pensive lyre
Awakes its last, its parting strain.

At dawn he dies—a mob-feast hot and gory;
But that young Poet's latest breath
What doth it sing? Freedom it sings and glory,
'Twas faithful even unto death.

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*     *   "I shall not see ye, days of bliss and freedom:
The scaffold calls. My last hours wearily
Drag on. At dawn I die. The headsman's hand defiling,
By the long hair will lift my head on high
Above the crowd unmoved and smiling.
Farewell! My homeless dust, O friends! shall ne'er repose
In that dear spot where erst we pass'd 'neath sunny bowers
In science and in feasts our careless days, and chose
Beforehand for our urns a place among the flowers.
And if, my friends, in after years
With sadness my remembrance moves ye,
O, grant my dying prayer!—the prayer of one who loves ye:
Weep, loved ones, weep my lot, with still and silent tears;
Beware, or by those drops suspicion ye may waken;
In this bad age, ye know, e'en tears for crimes are taken:
Brother for brother now, alas! must weep no more.

And yet another prayer: you've listen'd o'er and o'er
Unto my idle rhymes, my spirit's careless breathings,
Mournful and gay by turns, traditions and bequeathings
Of all my vanish'd youth. And hopes, and joy, and pain,
And tears, and love, my friends, those burning leaves contain,
Yea, they contain my life. From Abel and from Fanny
Gather them all; for they are gifts of Muses many.
Keep them. The stern cold world, and fashion's gilded hall,
Shall never hear of them. Alas! my head must fall
Untimely: my unripe and crude imagination
To glory hath bequeath'd no grand and high creation;
I shall die all. But ye, who love my parting soul,
Keep for yourselves, O friends! my true though simple scroll;
And when the storm is past, in a fond crowd assemble
Sometimes to read my lines—to read, to weep, and tremble,
And weep, and read again, and say—Yes, this is he;
These are his words. And I, from death's cold fetter free,
Will rise unseen and sit among ye in the bower;
And drink your tears, as drinks the desert-sand the shower—
In sweet oblivion.... Then shall, haply, be repaid
All my love-woes, and thou, haply, my Captive Maid,
Will list my love-song then, pale, mournful, but relenting...."
But for a while the Bard ceased here his sad lamenting,
Ceased for a moment's space, and his pale head he bow'd.
The spring-days of his youth, loves, woes, a busy crowd,
Flitted before him. Girls with languid eyes and tender,
And feasts, and songs, and eyes of dark and burning splendour,
All, all revived; and far to the dim past he flew,
Dream-wing'd. But soon stream'd forth his murmur-song anew:—

"Why luredst thou me astray, thou Genius evil-fated?
For love, for quiet arts, and peace, I was created;
Why did I leave the shade, and life's untroubled way,
And liberty, and friends, and peace, more dear than they!
Fate lull'd my golden youth, and cast a glamour round me,