The Countryside

Hail, solitary corner,
Refuge for tranquility, for labors, and for inspiration,
Where the unseen flow of my days pours
Encompassed by happiness and oblivion.
I am yours: I have exchanged the depraved court of Circes,
The sumptuous feasts, amusements, delusions,
For the peaceful rustling of oak groves, for the silence of fields,
For unrestricted idleness, meditation’s helpmate.

I am yours: I love this shaded garden
With its coolness and flowers,
This meadow covered with fragrant haystacks,
Where sparkling brooks gurgle amid the bushes.
All around me are lively images:
Here, I can see the azure expanses of two lakes,
Where, from time to time, the whiteness of a fisherman’s sail gleams,
Behind them, a row of hills and striped wheat fields,
A scattering of peasant huts in the distance,
On moist banks, the wandering herds,
The smoky drying sheds, the winged mills;
Everywhere, there are traces of contentment and labor…

Here, freed from the shackles of fruitless endeavor,
I learn to find bliss in truth,
To worship the law with a free soul,
To pay no heed to the murmuring of the unenlightened crowd,
To respond with sympathy to the humble petition,
And not to envy the lot
Of the villain or the fool in their unjustifiable greatness.

Oracles of the ages, here I have come to inquire of you!
In majestic solitude
Your comforting voice is better heard,
It banishes the morose dream of indolence,
It fans the fire for mighty deeds in me,
And your creative thoughts
Ripen in the depths of the soul.

But suddenly a horrifying notion darkens my soul:
In the midst of the flourishing fields and hills,
The friend of mankind sadly notices
Everywhere the murderous shame of perverse ignorance.
Not seeing the tears, not hearing the groans,
To the ruin of people in this place
A savage gentry – unfeeling, lawless – chosen by fate,
Has appropriated for itself by means of the coercive rod
The very labor, the very property, and even the time of the worker of the land.
Bending over another’s plow, submitting to the knouts,
At this moment, gaunt slavery drags itself along the furrows
Of the implacable owner.
Here, everyone towing the burdensome yoke shuffles to the grave,
Not daring to nourish any hopes or inclinations in the soul,
Here, young maidens come to full bloom
For the unfeeling whim of a villain.
The cherished support of aging fathers,
Youthful sons, comrades in their labors,
Leave the huts of their birth to multiply with themselves
The hordes of exhausted house slaves.
Oh, if only my voice could stir up hearts!
To what end is an unavailing fire burning in my breast
And why has the terrifying gift of eloquence not been granted to me by fate?
Will I ever see, O my friends, a people freed from oppression
And slavery dismissed at the will of the tsar,
And over the fatherland will there
Break at last a fair dawn of illuminated freedom?