How sweet a dream your memories raise!

[Note 78: This touching scene produced a lasting impression on Pushkin's mind. It took place at a public examination at the Lyceum, on which occasion the boy poet produced a poem. The incident recalls the "Mon cher Tibulle" of Voltaire and the youthful Parny (see Note 42). Derjavine flourished during the reigns of Catherine the Second and Alexander the First. His poems are stiff and formal in style and are not much thought of by contemporary Russians. But a century back a very infinitesimal endowment of literary ability was sufficient to secure imperial reward and protection, owing to the backward state of the empire. Stanza II properly concludes with this line, the remainder having been expunged either by the author himself or the censors. I have filled up the void with lines from a fragment left by the author having reference to this canto.]

III.

Passion's wild sway I then allowed,

Her promptings unto law did make,

Pursuits I followed of the crowd,

My sportive Muse I used to take

To many a noisy feast and fight,

Terror of guardians of the night;

And wild festivities among

She brought with her the gift of song.

Like a Bacchante in her sport

Beside the cup she sang her rhymes

And the young revellers of past times

Vociferously paid her court,

And I, amid the friendly crowd,

Of my light paramour was proud.

IV.

But I abandoned their array,

And fled afar - she followed me.

How oft the kindly Muse away

Hath whiled the road's monotony,

Entranced me by some mystic tale.

How oft beneath the moonbeams pale

Like Leonora did she ride(79)

With me Caucasian rocks beside!

How oft to the Crimean shore

She led me through nocturnal mist

Unto the sounding sea to list,

Where Nereids murmur evermore,

And where the billows hoarsely raise

To God eternal hymns of praise.

[Note 79: See Note 30, "Leonora," a poem by Gottfried Augustus Burger, b. 1748, d. 1794.]

V.

Then, the far capital forgot,

Its splendour and its blandishments,

In poor Moldavia cast her lot,