The Novice*by Mikhail Lermontov
Translated by Charles Johnston
*Lermontov's title for the poem is Mtsyri. He explains in a note: "Mtsyri in the Georgian language means 'a monk who does not serve,' something in the nature of a 'novice.'"
I did but taste a little honey, and, lo, I must die.
-- 1 SAMUEL XIV:43
I
Once, not so many years ago,
where soundingly together flow
Aragva and Kura -- the place
where, like two sisters, they embrace -- there
stood a monastery. Still
the traveller who comes down the hill
sees pillars of a crumbling gate,
towers, a church's vaulted state;
but from it now there's no perfume
of incense smoking in the gloom;
and late at night no chanting rolls,
no monks are praying for our souls.
Just an old watchman, feeble, grey,
attends the ruined church today;
by men forgotten he has been,
also by death, as he sweeps clean
gravestones with legends which keep green
tales of past fame -- of how, worn down
beneath the burden of his crown,
a certain king conveyed his land,
in such a year, to Russia's hand.
And so heaven's benediction fell
on Georgia! -- it has blossomed well;
the hedge that friendly bayonets made
since then has kept it unafraid,
enclosed in its own garden-shade.
II
Down from the mountains rode one day
a Russian general, on his way
to Tiftis, with a prisoner-child --
the boy was ill, the road had piled
up too much effort for him: wild
as mountain chamois, about six,
pliant and weak as kindling-sticks.
But in him his exhausted plight
had called forth some ancestral might
of spirit. For however faint
he felt, no groan, no least complaint
passed those young lips; he thrust aside
all ordinary food; in pride
and in silence he all but died.
A monk took pity on the waif,
tended his malady, and safe
in sheltering walls he lived on there,
brought back to health by loving care.
At first, detesting childish fun,
he ran away from everyone,
and, roaming silent, all alone,
looked to the east with sigh and groan --
yearnings too deep to understand
turned him towards his native land.
But soon his prison sentence grew
familiar, the strange language too;
then, christened by that holy man,
he never knew the world; his plan
in the full prime of youth was now
to utter the monastic vow;
when suddenly, one autumn night,
he vanished -- disappeared from sight.
Hills darkly wooded rose all round.
For three long days they searched the ground,
in vain; then on the steppe they found
him fainted, once more brought him in
back to the cloister; he was thin
and deathly pale and feeble too,
as from some fever he'd been through,
some hunger, while he'd been away,
or some ordeal. No word he'd say
to questions, visibly each day
he faded and approached his end.
Then came to him his reverend friend
with exhortation and with prayer;
proudly the sufferer heard him there,
then raised himself with all the strength
still left him, and thus spoke at length:
III
"I thank you, sir, for coming here
for my confession. In your ear
words are the medicine that best
will ease the burden of my chest.
To others I have done no ill,
and so my actions for you will
be profitless to hear about --
or can a soul be detailed out?
I've lived my short life in duress.
No, two such lives -- for one of stress
and terror, willingly I would
exchange them if I only could.
I've known one thought, one and the same,
a thought of passion and of flame:
worm-like, it lived in me; it ate
my soul away like fire in grate.
My dreams, from stifling cell's estate,
my prayers, it called to that brave world
where fears and battles are unfurled,
where lost in cloud are cliff and scree,
and where, like eagles, men are free.This passion, in the dark midnight
nourished on tears, with all my might
to heaven and earth I shout today,
and for no pardon do I pray.
IV
"Often I've heard how you did save
me, sir, from an untimely grave --
for what? ... alone, and glum, and pale,
a leaf torn off by blast of gale,
I've grown up within walls of gloom,
in soul a child, a monk by doom.
'Mother' and 'father' -- holy sounds --
could call no one; in the bounds
of sanctuary you hoped I'd lose
the natural human wish to use
these sweetest of all names. In vain:
they were inborn. Once and again
others I saw on every hand
with home, friends, parents, native land;
for me, not only no one dear --
not even dear ones' tombs were here!Then, without wasting time to weep,
I took an oath I swore to keep:
that at some time my burning breast
just for a moment should be pressed
against someone's, perhaps unknown,
yet from a land that was my own.
But now, alas, they're dead, those dreams
in the full beauty of their gleams,
and, as I've lived, I'll find my grave
in alien soil, an orphaned slave.
V
"I have no horror of the tomb:
they say that suffering, in that room,
sleeps in cold, everlasting calm.
But, to stop living, ... there's the harm.
I'm young, young . .. Have you never known
the dreams to which wild youth is prone?
Have you not known, have you forgot,
how hate was sharp, how love was hot;
how the heart beat more keenly while
from some tall battlemented pile
you saw the sun, the fields spread round,
and air was nipping, and you found
deep in the wall's recess sometimes
a huddled nursling from far climes --
a young dove that, driven in by fear
of raging storms, has fluttered here?
Perhaps the glorious world today
has cooled for you: you're weak, you're grey,
you've lost the habit of desire.
But you no longer need that fire.
You've got things to forget -- for you,
you've lived -- I wish I could live too!VI
"You ask what I contrived to see
during the days while I was free?
Rich plains, and hills that trees had crowned,
woods running riot all around,
in whispering clusters, fresh as spring,
like brothers dancing in a ring.
And frowning cliffs I saw, whose heart
cleft by the torrent, beat apart;
I guessed their thoughts: diviner's art
was given to me from on high!
their stone embracings in the sky
long since cut off, each day, each night,
they long, they thirst to reunite;
but years and ages pass in vain --
and never they shall join again!
And I saw mountain crests that seem
fantastical as any dream,
where, at the earliest hour of dawn,
as if from altars, smoke was drawn
up from the peaks into the blue,
and little clouds came swarming through,
leaving their secret sleeping-place,
turning to east their hurrying face --
in a white caravan, like bands
of birds flown in from distant lands!
Far off I saw, through vapoury strands,
where, glittering diamond of the snows,
grey bastion -- Caucasus arose;
and then, for some strange reason, I
felt light of heart; in days gone by --
a secret voice so prompted me --
I'd lived there. I began to see
ever more clearly, now at last,
places and things from time long past.
VII
"And I remembered father's hall,
and our ravine, our village, all
in cool shadow dispersed around;
I heard the evening thunder-sound
as homing horses galloped through,
the distant bark of dogs I knew.
On moonlight evenings, memory traced
the row of elders, swarthy-faced,
who sat with serious looks before
my father's porch; no, I saw more,
I saw the chiselled scabbards gleam,
on their long daggers ... Like a dream
a row of pictures, indistinct,
came and before my vision winked.
My father, as in life, all prinked
in armour, stood there; chain-mail clinked
as I remembered; light ablaze
from rifle-barrels, and that gaze,
that proud, indomitable stare;
and my young sisters too were there
their sweet eyes shone, their voices rang,
once more I listened as they sang
over my crib ... A torrent sprang
down our ravine; it roared, it rolled,
but it was shallow; on its gold
sands I would play at noon; my sight
pursued the swallows in their flight
as, when a storm of rain was due,
they grazed the water while they flew.
I saw again our peaceful hall;
at evening, round the hearth, we all
listened to tales that would recall
how men lived in days long since gone,
days when the world still brighter shone.
VIII
"What did I do, you seek to know,
while I had freedom? I lived -- so
my life were sadder far than this
dotage of yours, had it to miss
those three days of perfected bliss.
It's long since I began to yearn
to see far fields, and to discern
if earth was beautiful -- to learn
whether for freedom or for gaol
we come to this terrestrial vale.
So in that dreadful hour of night
when thunder struck you down with fright,
when by the altar, pressing round,
you lay all prostrate on the ground,
I fled. I'd have been glad to race,
to enfold in brotherly embrace
that storm! My gaze pursued each cloud,
my hands caught lightning-bolts ... Speak loud,
tell me, inside this walled-in space
what would you give me to replace
the friendship, keen, though brief and frail,
that stormy hearts feel for the gale?
IX
"And so I ran, long hours and far,
I know not where! No single star
lighted me on my stumbling way.
Joyful it was for me to stray,
to let my tortured chest assay
the midnight freshness of the wood --
no more than that. I ran a good
long while, and then, worn out at last,
lay on a tussock thickly grassed,
and listened: no sounds of a chase.
The storm had died. A feeble trace
of light, a radiance, seemed to lie
between the earth and the dark sky,
and, patterned on it, stood out plain
the peaks of a far mountain-chain.
Silent, unmoving and unseen,
I lay; at times, from the ravine,
like a small child, a jackal wailed,
and smoothly, glitteringly scaled,
between the stones a serpent slipped;
and yet my soul was never gripped
by fear: wild as a beast, I slid,
snakelike, away from man, and hid.
X
"Storm-swollen, on the lower ground
a torrent roared, and its dull sound
resembled closely, so I found,
a hundred angry voices. I
could understand this wordless cry,
this unformed murmur -- endless shock
of wrangling with hard-fronted rock.
Now all at once the tumult fell
silent, now it began to swell
and break the stillness all about;
soon, on that misty height, rang out
the song of birds, and then the east
turned golden; suddenly released,
a breath shook leaves on every bough;
the sleepy flowers breathed perfume now,
and, like them, I saluted day,
looked out . .. and it's no shame to say,
as I peered round, I quaked with fear:
I had been lying on the sheer
brink of a frightful cliff; from here
an angry torrent, far below,
went whirling onward, and to show
the way down, steps cut in the face;
only a fiend expelled from grace,
thrown down from heaven, could ever dare
to seek hell's caverns down that stair.
XI
"And, all around, God's garden bloomed.
Flowers that in bright raiment loomed
still kept a trace of tears divine,
and curling tendrils of the vine
wound brilliantly amid the sheen
cast by the leaves' pellucid green;
while, on them, heavy clusters slung
were like rich earrings as they hung
in splendour; sometimes to them flew
a flock of birds in timorous crew.
Once more I lay back on the ground,
once more I listened to that sound,
to those strange voices in the scrub
whispering away to every shrub
as if they had, by magic spell,
secrets of earth and sky to tell;
all nature's voices there were blurred
together; nowhere to be heard
one single human tongue to raise
the morning hour's majestic praise.
All that I felt then, all my mind
was thinking, left no trace behind;
if only I could tell it -- then
just for a flash I'd live again.
Heaven's vault, it was so clear and chaste
that morning, sharp eyes could have traced
the flight of angels; through and through,
such even, deep, translucent blue!
My eyes and my soul drowned; but soon
under the blaze of sultry noon
my reveries were all dispersed
and I began to pine with thirst.
XII
"Then to the torrent from that height,
from crag to crag, as best I might,
clutching the pliant bushes, I
set off downhill. A rock would fly
from underfoot, and roll and bound;
smoking, the dust behind it wound;
it rumbled down, with jump and thud,
and then was swallowed in the flood;
dangling, I hung above the scree,
but death held no alarms for me,
for hands are strong when youth is free!
As I groped down the steep descent,
the mountain water's freshness went
aloft to meet me, and I fell
thirstily on the torrent-swell.
Then, all at once, a voice -- and light
footfalls ... and in instinctive fright
I ducked behind the scrub, and out
timidly I peered round about,
I listened with a kind of thirst.
And ever nearer, burst by burst,
the Georgian maiden's singing rang;
with such an artlessness she sang,
so sweet and clear and free her tone,
you'd think she'd learnt to sing alone
the names of loved ones of her own.
Nothing more simple than that strain,
but in my thought it lodged; again
at nightfall I can hear it ring,
as if, unseen, her soul should sing.XIII
"Holding her pitcher on her head,
the maiden took the path that led
down to the mountain torrent's bed.
Sometimes, on rock, her foothold slipped;
she laughed as awkwardly she tripped.
Her dress was humble; down the track
she walked lightfooted and brushed back
her winding chadra. Sultry days
had covered in a golden haze
her face, her breast; and summer's glow
breathed from her mouth and cheeks. But so
deep was the darkness of her eyes,
so full of secrets to surmise,
love-secrets, that my head went round.
All I remember is the sound
the jug made as it slowly drowned,
a murmuring through the torrent flood ...
When I came to, and when the blood
had flowed back from my heart, she'd gone
some distance off; as she walked on,
slow, yet lightfooted, straight and trim
beneath her load, she was as slim
as any poplar-tree that stands
and queens it over neighbouring lands!
Not far away, in close embrace,
two cabins grown from the rock-face
loomed through the chilly evening mist;
above one's roof, in a blue twist,
smoke rose. As now, I see again
how the door gently opened, then
it shut once more! .. . For you, I know,
it's past conceiving why I'm so
brimful of yearning and so sad --
it's past conceiving, and I'm glad;
the memory of those moments I
would wish in me, with me to die.XIV
"By the night's travail quite worn out
I lay down in the shades. Without
effort my eyes were sealed about
by blissful sleep ... I saw once more
that Georgian girl and, as before,
a strange, sweet yearning came to break
my heart and make it pine and ache.
I fought, I fought to breathe -- but soon
I woke up. And by now the moon
was high and shining; after it
a single cloudlet seemed to flit
with arms wide open for the embrace.
And the dark world was still; in space
far distant, ranges tipped with snow
sparkled away, and seemed to throw
a silhouette of silvery glow.
Splashing its banks, I heard the stream;
and in the cabin a faint gleam
would flicker up, and once more die;
just so, across the midnight sky,
a bright star shines, then dies up there!
I longed to ... but I didn't dare
go over to the hut. I'd planned
one thing -- to reach my native land;
one thing alone -- so hunger's pain
I quelled as best I could. Again
I started on the straightest way,
timid, without a word to say --
but all at once began to stray
as soon as in the forest's night
I'd lost the mountains from my sight.
XV
"In my despair, to no avail,
I clutched, at moments on my trail,
some thorny bush, with ivy crowned:
eternal forest all around
grew denser, grimmer, every pace;
with million coal-black eyes, the face
of darkest night looked through the scrub,
peered through the twigs of every shrub ...
My head was turning; for a time
I tried the trees, began to climb;
but always, on the horizon's edge,
the same woods rose in spire and wedge.
Then I threw myself down and lay
sobbing in a despairing way,
biting the earth's damp breast; a spell
of weeping came, and my tears fell
to ground in scalding streams of dew ...
but help from men, I swear to you,
I'd have at no price ... Through and through,
like a steppe beast, to all their crew
I felt a stranger; and if my
weak tongue had by the feeblest cry
betrayed me, reverend father, why ,
I'd torn it out, as I may die.XVI
"You will recall, no teardrop came
from me in childhood; all the same
I now was weeping without shame.
For who could see except the dark
forest, the moon high on its arc'?Lit by its rays, all floored with sand
and moss, I saw before me stand,
impenetrably walled, a glade.
Suddenly there, a flickering shade,
two sparks of fire that darted round ...
from the dark forest in one bound
a creature sprang, rolled on its back,
lay playing on the sandy track.
It was the waste's eternal guest --
the huge snow-leopard. He caressed
a moistened bone, he gnawed it, squealed
for sheer enjoyment; then he wheeled
on the full moon his bloodshot eyes,
thumping his tail in friendliest wise --
his coat with silver gleams was shot.
I waited for the fight; I'd got
in hand a cudgel -- and on fire
my heart with sudden wild desire
for war and blood ... yes, fate, I'll say,
has led me on a different way ...
but if I'd lived at home, I swear
I'd never have been counted there
as one of those who feared to dare.XVII
"I waited. Now, through shades of dark,
he smelt an enemy -- and hark,
a sad howl, like a groan, drawn out,
came forth ... In rage he set about
to paw and furrow up the sand,
he reared right up, as people stand,
he crouched, and his first furious leap
threatened me with eternal sleep.
But I forestalled him, and my stroke
was sure and swift. My cudgel broke
open his wide brow like an axe . ..
He toppled over in his tracks,
groaned like a man. But now once more,
though blood was streaming from his score
in a broad, thickly pulsing vein,
the mortal fight boiled up again.
XVIII
"He rushed my chest in one swift bound;
but with my weapon I had found
his throat, twice I had turned it round ...
he whined, and with his final strength
began to jerk and twitch; at length,
like a snake-couple tight-enlaced,
more closely than two friends embraced,
we fell together, in dark night
continued on the ground our fight.
And at that moment I was wild
and fiercer than the desert's child,
the snow-leopard; like him, I blazed,
I howled -- as if I had been raised
by leopards and by wolves beneath
the woods' cool overhanging sheath.
It seemed as if I'd lost the power
of human language -- in that hour
my chest brought out a wild sound -- why,
it seemed from childhood never I
had learned to make a different cry ...But weakness now crept on my foe,
he tossed, he turned, he breathed more slow,
he crushed me one last time . .. in ire
his staring pupils threatened fire --
then gently closed up in the deep
onset of everlasting sleep;
but, meeting death, he knew to keep
facing it and his conquering foe,
the way a fighting man should go!
XIX
"You see these deep scars on my chest
scooped where the leopard-talons pressed;
they haven't grown together, still
they gape; but earth's damp cover will
bring them the freshness of the field,
by death for ever they'll be healed.
I forgot all about them then,
called my reserves of strength again,
in deepest forest plunged in straight ...
But all in vain my fight with fate:
it laughed at me and my estate!
XX
"I left the woodland. Now the day
was waking up; before its ray
the dance of travelling stars went out.
Then the dark forest all about
began to talk. From an aul*
far off, smoke started up. A full
boom from the gorge, a voiceless hum
blew on the wind ... I heard it come,
I sat and listened; but it died
just as the breeze did.
Far and wide
I turned my gaze: that countryside,
surely I knew it? And a strong
terror came over me, for long
I couldn't credit that once more
I'd headed back to prison; or
that all these days I'd spent in vain
nursing my secret hope -- the pain,
the yearning patience every hour,
and all for what? ... That in the flower
of years, and hardly having seen
God's world, that having scarcely been
allowed in murmuring woods to know
the bliss of freedom, I must go
and carry with me to the tomb
the longing for my home, the gloom
of cheated hope and of self-blame,
of your compassion and its shame! ..Still sunk in doubt, I lingered there,
I thought it all was some nightmare
Suddenly in the silence fell
once more the distant tolling bell
and all was lucid in no time ...
At once I'd recognised its chime!
How often from my childish eyes
it had chased out the bright disguise
of dreamland, forms of kith and kin,
the steppe's wild liberty, the spin
of lightfoot horses, and the shocks
of splendid fights among the rocks,
and I the winner! ... So I heard,
tearless and strengthless. In a word
it seemed my heart was where the chime
came from -- as if someone each time
struck it with iron. Then I knew,
though vaguely, nothing I could do
would to my homeland bring me through.
_______________
Note:* Moslem village.
XXI
"Yes, I've deserved my destined course!
On the strange steppe a mighty horse,
with its unskilful rider thrown,
from far off will find out alone
the straightest, shortest homeward way ...
I cannot equal him.
Each day
in vain my heart desires and yearns;
feeble the flame with which it burns,
plaything of dreams, malaise of mind.
On me my prison left behind
its brand ... Just so there grows in gaol
on the wet flags, alone and pale,
a blossom, and long time puts out
no youthful leaves, but waits about,
languishing for life-giving rays.
It waits, and there pass many days
till some kind hand, touched by the grief
of the poor bloom, to bring relief
moves it to a rose-garden, where
from every side there breathes an air
of life and sweetness ... But, once there,
no sooner comes the sunrise hour
than with its incandescent power
it scorches the gaol-nurtured flower.
XXII
"Just like that blossom, I was burned
by day's remorseless fire. I turned
to no avail my weary head,
I hid it in the grass; instead
my brow by withered leaf was wreathed
in thorny crown, and the earth breathed
into my face its breath of flame.
High up above me circling came
motes in the sun; the vapour steamed
from the white rocks. God's whole world seemed
numbed in a heavy slumber there,
the deep dull slumber of despair.
If only a cornerake from the hill
had called; if only the quick trill
of dragonfly wings, or a rill
childishly chattering ... Just a snake
was rustling through the dried-up brake;
across its yellow back, light played
as if upon a golden blade
engraved all down with letters, and
scattering a small wake of sand
it crawled meticulously, then
it played, it basked, it writhed again
in triple coil, then gave a start,
just as if scalded, in one dart
it dived inside the bushes' heart,
and deep in scrub it disappeared.
XXIII
"But now the sky was calm, and cleared
of cloudscape. Far, through mists that steamed,
rose two dark mountains, and there gleamed
underneath one of them a wall --
our cloister's battlemented hall.
Aragva and Kura below
were lapping with their silvery flow
at feet of islands cool and fresh,
at whispering bushes and their mesh
of roots, and pulsing on their way
in gentle harmony ... but they
were too far off! I tried to rise --
everything whirled before my eyes;
I tried to shout -- my dried-up tongue,
voiceless and motionless it hung ...
I seemed to die. Herald of death,
a madness crushed me, squeezed my breath.
And then it seemed to me that I
on the moist bed had come to lie
of a deep river -- there I found
mysterious darkness all around.
And quenching my eternal thirst
the ice-cold stream, in bubbling burst,
into my chest came flowing deep ...
My only fear, to fall asleep,
so sweet, so blissful was my plight ...
And there above me in the height
wave thronged on wave, and through the bright
crystal of water the sun beamed,
with a moon's graciousness it gleamed ...
From time to time, across its ray
fish in bright flocks began to play.
And one, more friendly than her mates,
caressed me. Backed with scaly plates
of gold, I still can see her coat,
as round my head she came to float;
and, deeply gazing, her green eyes
were sweetly sad ... and a profound
amazement seized me at the sound
of her small voice's silvery strain:
it sang to me, then ceased again.
That voice, it seemed to say: 'My child,
do thou stay here with me:
our life down in this watery wild
is cool, and rich, and free.
'My sisters all I will enrol
and with our circling dance
we shall divert thy weary soul
and cheer thy fainting glance.'Now sleep away, soft is thy bed,
thy sheet, shot through with gleams.
The years, the ages o'er thy head
will pass in wondrous dreams.
'Beloved, let me tell thee true,
I love thee, as down here
the current flowing freely through
and my own life are dear ... '
Long, long I listened; and I found
the stream had set its quiet sound,
the tale its lilting whisper told,
to music from that fish of gold.
I swooned. The light that God had lit
quenched in my eyes. The raving fit
passed from my fainting body then.
XXIV
"So I was found, brought here again ...
I've finished, for you know what more
there is to tell. Believe me or
believe me not -- I do not care.
Just one thing grieves me, this I swear:
my body, lifeless, cold and dumb,
will never to my homeland come
to moulder there; my grievous thrall
in the deaf circle of this wall
will never be rehearsed, or claim
a sad repute for my dim name.
XXV
"Father, your hand, please, in farewell;
mine is on fire, as you can tell . ..
Since childhood, well-concealed, suppressed,
this flame has lived inside my breast;
but now there's nothing left that burns;
it's blazed its way out, and returns,
returns once more to Him who gives
just measure, to each man who lives,
of pain and peace ... but what do I
care? Yes, in realms behind the sky
my soul will find its refuge due ...
alas! I'd barter, for a few
moments among those steep and strange
rocks where my childhood used to range --
heaven and eternity I'd change ...
XXVI
"But when I'm dying -- for that date,
believe me, there's not long to wait --
give orders I be carried out
into our garden, just about
where bloom two white acacias, where
the turf's so thick, and the cool air
so perfumed, and the leaves that play
so limpid-gold in the sun's ray!
There bid them set me; of bright day
and the sky's radiant blue I will
there for the last time drink my fill.
Thence Caucasus is clear to see!
perhaps, down from his summit, he
will send me, on the wind's cool breath,
his farewell ... and before my death
perhaps near by once more I'll hear
my native tongue! and someone dear,
I'll dream, some brother, or some friend,
how, gently, over me he'll bend,
how, tenderly, he'll wipe my brow
clean of death's icy sweat, and how
he'll sing to me in undertone
of that dear country, once my own ...
and so I'll sleep -- no curse, no groan!"