IN ALEXIS RAVELIN
P. POLIVANOV
Always the same dim, cheerless, dusty vaults,
The same bars darkening all the window-space!
Long ranks of years, that seem like evil dreams
In broken sleep, stretch out before my face.
If but one distant sound could here be heard
Of life, broad, free, and seething like the main,
It would have stirred me with its mighty strength,
And eased the burden of this torturing pain.
No! all around me reigns a deathly hush,
Heart-crushing, grave-like; in it nothing stirs
Save now and then the buzzing of a fly,
Or in the corridor the clash of spurs.
Bright burden of emotions and of strife,
Time of impassioned hope and fancy high,
Of faith in glad days for posterity—
Where are you now? Vanished as dreams go by!
A mist has settled over all the past,
Enwrapping it forever in its shroud;
And it has thickened to a winding-sheet,
And hangs above me like a boding cloud.
That leaden cloud depresses heavily;
It chills the brain, with long confinement worn,
And pierces deep my soul with poison hot
Of black and heavy thoughts, in prison born.