Excerpt from The Demon
Oh, Caucasus, to thee, majestic, wild,
I sing my lay, its faltering strains confessing -
Inspire the singer, as thou would'st thy child,
With snowy halo of paternal blessing.
'Twas thou, whose spell my youthful thoughts beguiled
With chains as strong as fate, as love caressing -
In northern lands thou knowest not - even there
My heart was thine always and everywhere.
Even as a boy I roamed, thine ardent lover,
O'er crags and beetling rocks with timorous tread,
Where thou, like Allah's worshippers, did'st cover
With misty turban thine imperial head,
Where homing eagle paused awhile to hover,
And freer winds their courses onward sped,
There on the dizzy peak my dreamland fancies
Whirled on with these through ether's broad expanses.
Since then till now long years have rolled between.
Once more among thy cliffs behold our meeting!
Kindly thy welcome to the boy has been,
Now to the exile kindly be thy greeting.
For grief thou gav'st oblivion serene
To one who sought thee, love for love entreating.
Lo! he again invokes thee here and now,
Whose thoughts are thine and all whose song art thou.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Oh, Caucasus, to thee, majestic, wild,
I sing my lay, its faltering strains confessing -
Inspire the singer, as thou would'st thy child,
With snowy halo of paternal blessing.
'Twas thou, whose spell my youthful thoughts beguiled
With chains as strong as fate, as love caressing -
In northern lands thou knowest not - even there
My heart was thine always and everywhere.
Even as a boy I roamed, thine ardent lover,
O'er crags and beetling rocks with timorous tread,
Where thou, like Allah's worshippers, did'st cover
With misty turban thine imperial head,
Where homing eagle paused awhile to hover,
And freer winds their courses onward sped,
There on the dizzy peak my dreamland fancies
Whirled on with these through ether's broad expanses.
Since then till now long years have rolled between.
Once more among thy cliffs behold our meeting!
Kindly thy welcome to the boy has been,
Now to the exile kindly be thy greeting.
For grief thou gav'st oblivion serene
To one who sought thee, love for love entreating.
Lo! he again invokes thee here and now,
Whose thoughts are thine and all whose song art thou.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Used availability for Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov's Demon