Classic Poem

To Iskànder

In days of my boyhood so gentle and tender,
In days of my passionate youth in its splendour,
Through manhood, while slowly to age I surrender,—
Through all of my life and within my endeavour,
One word in my ears there is ringing for ever—
“Liberty! Liberty!”

Tormented by slavery, sad and dejected,
In alien lands all unknown and rejected,
I live but to utter that name long neglected;
Across the wide seas and the countries that sever,
One word to my motherland calling for ever—
“Liberty! Liberty!”

It came o'er the waves to the place of my wailing,
'Mid silence, at midnight,—a rumour assailing
My senses, through darkness and tempest prevailing—
I hear it! my heart can abandon it never,
That voice from my country that sounds on for ever—
“Liberty! Liberty!”

My heart, long accustomed to doubt in its yearning,
Sprang up as it throbbed with new ecstasy burning,
Like a bird from its cage to the wide world returning;
It sings a farewell to its prison for ever,
While solemn and clear rings the note of endeavour—
“Liberty! Liberty!”

In the dreams I behold, with the snows that surround him,
The peasant, long-bearded,—the glad news has found him,—
He shakes from his great limbs the fetters that bound him,—
And speaks the glad word, the unchanging for ever
Eternal,—the future can silence it never—
“Liberty! Liberty!”

But if there should chance,—if there came any reason,—
To fear for that Liberty, let her in season
Cry out, and I fly to encounter the treason;
And if from that uttermost struggle I never
Return, I can call with the cry “Live for ever,
“Liberty! Liberty!”

It may be I die with the strangers around me,
Yet hope and belief in the future have found me,
O comrade! ere Death in his shackles has bound me;
That name do thou whisper, to last me for ever,
That name—of our love, of our faith and endeavour—
Liberty! Liberty!”EnglishNikolay Platonovich Ogarev