"Thus every day, every year, With death I join my thought Of coming death the day, Seeking among them to divine "Where will Fortune send me death,-- In battle, in my wanderings, or on the waves? Or shall the neighboring valley Receive my chilled dust? "But though the unfeeling body Can equally moulder everywhere, I, still, my birthland nigh, Would have my body lie. "Let near the entrance to my grave Cheerful youth be engaged in play, And let indifferent creation Shine there with beauty eternally." 21. Once passed through its mumps and measles, the soul of the poet now becomes conscious of its heavenly gift, and begins to have a conscious purpose. The poet becomes moralized, and the song becomes ethical. This is the beginning of the final stage, which the soul, if its growth continue healthy, must reach; and Pushkin, when singing, does retain his health. Accordingly in his address to the Steed, the purpose is already clearly visible. THE HORSE. Why dost thou neigh, O spirited steed; Why thy neck so low, Why thy mane unshaken, Why thy bit not gnawed? Do I then not fondle thee; Thy grain to eat art thou not free; Is not thy harness ornamented, Is not thy rein of silk, Is not thy shoe of silver, Thy stirrup not of gold? The steed, in sorrow, answer gives: Hence am I still, Because the distant tramp I hear, The trumpet's blow, and the arrow's whiz; And hence I neigh, since in the field No longer shall I feed, Nor in beauty live, and fondling, Nor shine with the harness bright. For soon the stern enemy My harness whole shall take, And the shoes of silver From my light feet shall tear. Hence it is that grieves my spirit; That in place of my chaprak With thy skin shall cover he My perspiring sides. 22. It is thus that the singer lifts up his voice against the terrors of war. It is thus that he protests against the struggle between brother and brother; and the effect of the protest is all the more potent that it is put into the mouth, not as Nekrassof puts it, of the singer, but into that of a dumb, unreasoning beast. 23. We have now reached the last stage of the development of Pushkin's singing soul. For once conscious of a moral purpose, he cannot remain long on the plane of mere protest; this is mere negation. What is to him the truth must likewise be sung, and he utters the note of affirmation; this in his greatest poem,-- THE PROPHET.