Page:Poems, Alexander Pushkin, 1888.djvu/184

178 such an elegy can redeem not only a few tales, but even the entire volume of poetry!" &hellip; (Byelinsky's Works, ii. 194.)

LOVE AND FREEDOM. (Page 137.)

In the original this poem is called, "To Countess N. V. Kotshubey."

INSPIRING LOVE. (Page 139.)

In the original this piece is headed, "To A. P. Kern."

THE GRACES. (Page 141.)

Addressed to Princess S. A. Urussov.

TO THE POET. (Page 153.)

This is the only poem Turgenef quotes in his speech at the unveiling of the Pushkin monument in 1880. "Of course," he said, "you all know it, but I cannot withstand the temptation to adorn my slim, meagre prosy speech with this poetic gold."

THE TASK. (Page 155.)

Byelinsky, who has taught me to appreciate much in Pushkin which I otherwise would not have appreciated, speaks of this little piece as "especially excellent" among Pushkin's anthological poems, written in hexameter, and says, that a breath antique blows from them. Well, I cannot agree with Byelinsky. There is, doubtless, a sentimentlet in the piece,—a germ; but it is only a germ, incomplete, immature. I would not have translated it (since its beauty, whatever that be, it owes entirely to its form, which is untranslatable), but for the sake of the