The Talisman, by George Borrow

Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected]

THE TALISMAN
FROM THE RUSSIAN OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN
WITH OTHER PIECES

Contents:

   The Talisman
   The Mermaid
   Ancient Russian Song
   Ancient Ballad
   The Renegade

THE TALISMAN

From the Russian of Pushkin.

Where fierce the surge with awful bellow
Doth ever lash the rocky wall;
And where the moon most brightly mellow
Dost beam when mists of evening fall;
Where midst his harem’s countless blisses
The Moslem spends his vital span,
A Sorceress there with gentle kisses
Presented me a Talisman.

And said: until thy latest minute
Preserve, preserve my Talisman;
A secret power it holds within it—
’Twas love, true love the gift did plan.
From pest on land, or death on ocean,
When hurricanes its surface fan,
O object of my fond devotion!
Thou scap’st not by my Talisman.

The gem in Eastern mine which slumbers,
Or ruddy gold ’twill not bestow;
’Twill not subdue the turban’d numbers,
Before the Prophet’s shrine which bow;
Nor high through air on friendly pinions
Can bear thee swift to home and clan,
From mournful climes and strange dominions—
From South to North—my Talisman.

But oh! when crafty eyes thy reason
With sorceries sudden seek to move,
And when in Night’s mysterious season
Lips cling to thine, but not in love—
From proving then, dear youth, a booty
To those who falsely would trepan
From new heart wounds, and lapse from duty,
Protect thee shall my Talisman.

THE MERMAID

From the Russian of Pushkin.

Close by a lake, begirt with forest,
To save his soul, a Monk intent,
In fasting, prayer and labours sorest
His days and nights, secluded, spent;
A grave already to receive him
He fashion’d, stooping, with his spade,
And speedy, speedy death to give him,
Was all that of the Saints he pray’d.

As once in summer’s time of beauty,
On bended knee, before his door,
To God he paid his fervent duty,
The woods grew more and more obscure:
Down o’er the lake a fog descended,
And slow the full moon, red as blood,
Midst threat’ning clouds up heaven wended—
Then gazed the Monk upon the flood.

He gaz’d, and, fear his mind surprising,
Himself no more the hermit knows:
He sees with foam the waters rising,
And then subsiding to repose,
And sudden, light as night-ghost wanders,
A female thence her form uprais’d,
Pale as the snow which winter squanders,
And on the bank herself she plac’d.

She gazes on the hermit hoary,
And combs her long hair, tress by tress;
The Monk he quakes, but on the glory
Looks wistful of her loveliness;
Now becks with hand that winsome creature,
And now she noddeth with her head,
Then sudden, like a fallen meteor,
She plunges in her watery bed.

No sleep that night the old man cheereth,
No prayer throughout next day he pray’d
Still, still, against his wish, appeareth
Before him that mysterious maid.
Darkness again the wood investeth,
The moon midst clouds is seen to sail,
And once more on the margin resteth
The maiden beautiful and pale.

With head she bow’d, with look she courted,
And kiss’d her hand repeatedly,
Splashed with the water, gaily sported,
And wept and laugh’d like infancy—
She names the monk, with tones heart-urging
Exclaims “O Monk, come, come to me!”