Page:Poems, Alexander Pushkin, 1888.djvu/53

Rh Night has halls, and these halls are marble halls; and this marble-halled Night is unable to stay at home, and must go forth, and accordingly she does go in full dress with her garments trailing with a right gracious sweep. And the bard not only sees the sable skirts which dangle about in fringes made phosphorescent by contact with the celestial walls of such peculiar marble, but he even hears the rustle.&hellip; And these halls with accommodating grace are changed into cool, deep cisterns from which accordingly the bard's spirit with due solemnity draws into his spirit's wide-opened mouth a draught of repose.

27. Turn from this "Hymn to Night" of thirty lines to the three lines of Pushkin in his "Reminiscence," which alone he devotes to Night:—

The marble halls and the trailing garments were ground out from the writer's fingers; the half-transparent shadow of the poet came to the poet.&hellip;

28. After such examples of wretchedness from real giants such as Byron and Longfellow indisputably are, I do not hesitate to ask the