Part II

.; _Counsel_, _The Little Dove_, in W. D. Lewis’s _The Bakchesarian Fountain_; _Yermak_, _The Siskin and the Chaffinch_, _The Doctor_, _Sympathy_, in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_; _The Moon_, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1842 (article, _Russian Fabulists_).

THE LITTLE DOVE

The little dove, with heart of sadness, In silent pain sighs night and day; What now can wake that heart to gladness? His mate beloved is far away.

He coos no more with soft caresses, No more is millet sought by him, The dove his lonesome state distresses, And tears his swimming eyeballs dim.

From twig to twig now skips the lover, Filling the grove with accents kind, On all sides roams the harmless rover, Hoping his little friend to find.

Ah! vain that hope his grief is tasting, Fate seems to scorn his faithful love, And imperceptibly is wasting, Wasting away, the little dove!

At length upon the grass he threw him, Hid in his wing his beak and wept; There ceased his sorrows to pursue him, The little dove for ever slept.

His mate, now sad abroad and grieving, Flies from a distant home again, Sits by her friend, with bosom heaving, And bids him wake with sorrowing pain.

She sighs, she weeps, her spirits languish, Around and round the spot she goes; Ah! charming Chloe’s lost in anguish, Her friend wakes not from his repose!

--From W. D. Lewis’s _The Bakchesarian Fountain_.

DURING A THUNDER-STORM

It thunders! Sons of dust, in reverence bow! Ancient of days! Thou speakest from above; Thy right hand wields the bolt of terror now; That hand which scatters peace and joy and love. Almighty! Trembling like a child, I hear Thy awful voice, alarmed, afraid, I see the flashes of Thy lightning wild, And in the very grave would hide my head.

Lord! What is man? Up to the sun he flies, Or feebly wanders through earth’s vale of dust: There is he lost ’midst heaven’s high mysteries, And here in error and in darkness lost. Beneath the stormclouds, on life’s raging sea, Like a poor sailor, by the tempest tossed In a frail bark, the sport of destiny, He sleeps, and dashes on the rocky coast.

Thou breathest, and the obedient storm is still. Thou speakest,--silent the submissive wave; Man’s shattered ship the rushing waters fill, And the hushed billows roll across his grave. Sourceless and endless God! Compared with Thee, Life is a shadowy, momentary dream, And Time, when viewed through Thy eternity, Less than the mote of morning’s golden beam.

--From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_,