Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.

The Scythians

Alexander Blok (1880–1921)

YOU are the millions, we are multitude

And multitude and multitude.

Come, fight! Yea, we are Scythians,

Yea, Asians, a squint-eyed, greedy brood.

For you: the centuries; for us: one hour.

Like slaves, obeying and abhorred,

We were the shield between the breeds

Of Europe and the raging Mongol horde.

For centuries your ancient hammers forged

And drowned the thunder of far hates.

You heard like wild fantastic tales

Old Lisbon’s and Messina’s sudden fates.

Yea, so to love as our hot blood can love

Long since you ceased to love; the taste

You have forgotten, of a love

That burns like fire and like the fire lays waste.

All things we love: clear numbers’ burning chill,

The ecstasies that secret bloom.

All things we know: the Gallic light

And the parturient Germanic gloom.

And we remember all: Parisian hells,

The breath of Venice’s lagoons,

Far fragrance of green lemon groves,

And dim Cologne’s cathedral-splintered moons.

And flesh we love, its color and its taste,

Its deathy odor, heavy, raw.

And is it our guilt if your bones

May crack beneath our powerful supple paw?

It is our wont to seize wild colts at play:

They rear and impotently shake

Wild manes—we crush their mighty croups.

And shrewish women slaves we tame—or break.

Come unto us, from the black ways of war,

Come to our peaceful arms and rest.

Comrades, while it is not too late,

Sheathe the old sword. May brotherhood be blest.

If not, we have not anything to lose.

We also know old perfidies.

By sick descendants you will be

Accursed for centuries and centuries.

To welcome pretty Europe, we shall spread

And scatter in the tangled space

Of our wide thickets. We shall turn

To you our alien Asiatic face.

For centuries your eyes were toward the East.

Our pearls you hoarded in your chests,

And mockingly you bode the day

When you could aim your cannon at our breasts.

The time has come! Disaster beats its wings.

With every day the insults grow.

The hour will strike, and without ruth

Your proud and powerless Paestums be laid low.

Oh pause, old world, while life still beats in you.

Oh weary one, oh worn, oh wise!

Halt here, as once did Œdipus

Before the Sphinx’s enigmatic eyes.

Yea, Russia is a Sphinx. Exulting, grieving,

And sweating blood, she cannot sate

Her eyes that gaze and gaze and gaze

At you with stone-lipped love for you, and hate.

Go, all of you, to Ural fastnesses,

We clear the battle-ground for war;

Cold Number shaping guns of steel

Where the fierce Mongol hordes in frenzy pour.

But we, we shall no longer be your shield.

But, careless of the battle-cries,

Shall watch the deadly duel seethe,

Aloof, with indurate and narrow eyes.

We shall not move when the ferocious Hun

Despoils the corpse and leaves it bare,

Burns towns, herds cattle in the church,

And smell of white flesh roasting fills the air.

For the last time, old world, we bid you come,

Feast brotherly within our walls.

To share our peace and glowing toil

Once only the barbarian lyre calls.