To the Sea
Unfettered element! Farewell
Before me now one final time
You roll again that skyblue swell,
And sparkle with a pride sublime.
Like an old friend's regretful sigh,
Like calls of fare-you-well through tears,
Your summoning sound, your sounding cry,
One final time now fills my ears.
Oh yes, my heart's desired reach!
How often I in twilight went
Quiet and dark along your beach,
Wracked by a sacred deep intent 1
Dear were the answers you would send,
Dim primal sounds, the chasm's call
The silences of eveningfall
And those impulsive flights of wind.
The humble sail of fishers' slips,
With the protection of your mood,
Bravely amid your watertips,
But you, a Titan unsubdued,
Roll rough and drown a herd of ships.
'Twas not my luck to leave the night
Fallen on this dry stirless shore,
To greet you, raptured into light,
And make my grand poetic flight
Across your crests forevermore
You called... I was enthralled aground.
Vainly my heart in shackles strained.
By spells of potent passion bound
Beside the beaches I remained.
What's to regret? Toward what far shoal
Could I my madcap voyage chart?
In all your open wilds, one goal
Could still have power to strike my heart,
One cliff...that sepulcher of glory
There a chill slumber in the west
Whelmed memories of a mighty story...
There was Napoleon felled to rest.
There rested he in tribulations.
And, after him as thunder, rolls
Yet one more genius of the nations,
One more commander of our souls 2
Leaving the world his wreath forever
He vanished, grieved by liberty.
Seethe! Sound! Blow wild with angry weather.
He was your one true bard, O Sea.
In him your spirit wrought its mark,
In your own image was he framed
Like you was potent, deep and dark.
Like you, an element untamed.
The world's a void. Now in that cold
Whither, O Sea, would you with me?
In every land one fate takes hold:
Each drop of virtue is patrolled
By technocrats...or tyranny 3
So, Sea, farewell. I will recall
Your august splendor all my years.
Long shall your boom as evenings fall
Sound and resound within my ears.
To woods and hushful wastes, away
Imbued anew with you, I bring
Your gleam and shadow, cliff and bay,
And your dear waves' blue rumoring.
Notes:
1 A reference to Pushkin's plan (which ultimately never materialized) to escape Russia and head for western Europe via the Baltic. This idea is also alluded to in stanzas 6 and 7.
2 A reference to the poet Byron, who had died at Missolonghi earlier that year (1824).
3 The original says "enlightenment" instead of "tecnhnocrats." The latter word didn't exist in Pushkin's time. Here Pushkin was using an instance of the old Romantic idea that "enlightenment" seen in western Europe as a herald of liberation was nothing more than tyranny in new garb. Pushkin's experience of this had to do with the way in which modernization and reform were being and had been implemented in Russia, being used to entrench power rather than challenge it.