English

So far, so far have I come,
Blown by the Wind of Fate:
Whither? The Voice is dumb.—
The Silence dismays me, I wait.

The Sunshine mocks me at morn,
The Stars deride me at night;
Shag strength in my soul be born
To triumph over their slight?

Shall I live when their fires are out?
Shall I reach where they cannot go?
Ah, Fate, resolve me the doubt,—
Blow on, strong Wind! I will know.

“Unbraid her dusky hair
And place a garland there.”

The Duchess Marusenka
To the city Horodenka
Trips with her small white feet.

She cuts barwenok there
To wreathe her dusky hair.

Her mother comes, pursuing,
“My child, what art thou doing?”

“Dear mother, can it be
Thou hast no need for me?

“Thou wilt not let me stay
But strive to force away.

“To give away thy daughter
To him who now has sought her?

“Still very young am I,
Not very wise. Then why …”

The wild, beleaguering March wind storms my door,
And in his wake surges an army vast,—
Old Hopes, old Dreams, old Love, too dear to last,
And all that made life glad in days of yore,
Turned now to ghosts, and from their alien shore
Come back for this one night to bring my Past,
And vex me with its spell about me cast,
Though It and I be parted evermore.

Beleaguering host! I bid ye now avaunt!
I will not listen, though ye call for aye
As pitiless as blasts from this March sky
I found ye once. What right have ye to haunt

Love is but folly,—since the wisest love,
Itself disclaiming, would invent a use
For its free motion.—Penitents recluse,
That scarce allow the natural heart to move,
With amorous ditties woo the mystic dove,
Or fondly bid their heavenly spouse unloose
Their sacred zones.—The politic excuse
Of worldlings would to worldly ends improve
The gentle madness.—Courtiers glibly preach
How Love and Woman best rehearse the play
That statesmen act.—The grave fine-spoken leech
Counts how the beatings of the pulse betray

Far out at sea I hear the wind complain,—
With the old plaint that vexed my childish ear,
And seemed the cry of spirits drawing near
To sob their incommunicable pain.
Whence did they come, and whither go again?
My very heart stood still with sudden fear
When the forlorn approach I used to hear
Of all the shuddering, melancholy train.

And lo, in this night's vigil far at sea,
The same long cry!—Are they unpardoned yet?
Does the old pain still goad them till they come,
Unsheltered souls, to sob once more to me

O THOU long-silent, solitary house,
Where Love once came and went with joyous cries,
Or lingered long, sighing as Summer sighs
When Autumn's breath begins her fear to rouse
With fierce caress that shall make bare her boughs
Her tender boughs, and all her beauty's prize
Deliver, faded, to the winds that rise
And rend her crown from her dishonored brows!—

O solitary house! thine open door
Again shall welcome sweet Love's wingèd tread
His eyes shall light thee, as they lit of yore
In days when Love and Joy were newly wed;

In the black jungle of the sky now wakes
The Lightning's writhing brood of fiery snakes,
And lion Thunder from his lair of cloud
Startles the dusky world with challenge loud.

When, but a child, I wandered hence,
Another child—sweet Innocence,
My sister—went with me:
But I have lost her, and am fain
To seek her in the home again
Where we were wont to be.

What cared she for the free hearts? She would comfort
The prisoned one:
What recked I of the wanton other singers?
She sang for me alone—
Was all my own, my own!

But when they loaded me with heavier fetters,
And chained I lay,
How could she know I longed to reach her window?
Athirst the livelong day,
At eve she fled away.

Still stands her cage wide open at the casement,
In sun and rain,
Though years have gone, and rust has thickly gathered,—
My watching all in vain;
She will not come again.

Ah, sweet it was to feel the strain,
What time, unseen, the ship above
Stood steadfast to the storm that strove
To rend our kindred cords atwain!

To feel, as feel the roots that grow
In darkness, when the stately tree
Resists the tempests, that in me
High Hope was planted far below!

But now, as when a mother's breast
Misses the babe, my prisoned power
Deep-yearning, heart-like, hour by hour,
Unquiet aches in cankering rest.