Adieu, he spake. Thee I saw;

Not in vain hast thou shone before me.

Not all in the world have I hated,

Not all in the world have I scorned.

20. Hitherto we have followed Pushkin only through his unconscious song; only through that song of which his soul was so full as to find an outlet, as it were, without any deliberate effort on his part. But not even unto the bard is it given to remain in this childlike health. For Nature ever works in circles. Starting from health, the soul indeed in the end arrives at health, but only through the road of disease. And a good portion of the conscious period in the life of the soul is taken up by doubt, by despair, by disease. Hence when the singer begins to reflect, to philosophize, his song is no longer that of health. This is the reason why Byron and Shelley have borne so little fruit. Their wail is the cry not of a mood, but of their whole being; it is not the cry of health temporarily deranged, but the cry of disease. With the healthy Burns, on the other hand, his poem, "Man was made to Mourn," reflects only a stage which all growing souls must pass. So Pushkin, too, in his growth, at last arrives at a period when he writes the following lines, not the less beautiful for being the offspring of disease, as all lamentation must needs be: - "Whether I roam along the noisy streets,

Whether I enter the peopled temple,

Or whether I sit by thoughtless youth,

My thoughts haunt me everywhere.

"I say, swiftly go the years by: However great our number now,

Must all descend the eternal vaults, -

Already struck has some one's hour.

"And if I gaze upon the lonely oak, I think: The patriarch of the woods

Will survive my passing age

As he survived my father's age.

"And if a tender babe I fondle, Already I mutter, Fare thee well!

I yield my place to thee;

For me 'tis time to decay, to bloom for thee.

"Thus every day, every year, With death I join my thought

Of coming death the day,

Seeking among them to divine

"Where will Fortune send me death, - In battle, in my wanderings, or on the waves?

Or shall the neighboring valley

Receive my chilled dust?

"But though the unfeeling body Can equally moulder everywhere,

I, still, my birthland nigh,

Would have my body lie.

"Let near the entrance to my grave Cheerful youth be engaged in play,

And let indifferent creation

Shine there with beauty eternally."

21. Once passed through its mumps and measles, the soul of the poet now becomes conscious of its heavenly gift, and begins to have a conscious purpose. The poet becomes moralized, and the song becomes ethical. This is the beginning of the final stage, which the soul, if its growth continue healthy, must reach; and Pushkin, when singing, does retain his health. Accordingly in his address to the Steed, the purpose is already clearly visible.

THE HORSE.

Why dost thou neigh, O spirited steed;

Why thy neck so low,

Why thy mane unshaken,

Why thy bit not gnawed?