Trifle not with free-born Cossacks! Nor too o'er foolhardy be! Thy mad mood thou wilt atone for-- On his pike he'll skewer thee! 'Ware friend Cossack! Or at full bound, Off thy head, at lightning speed With his scimitar he'll sever From thy trunk! He will indeed! What confusion! What a roaring! Halt! thou devil's pack, have care! On the pike is lanced the horseman-- Headless stands the Cossack there! PUSHKIN. _Delibash is the Turkish synonym for Hotspur_. TO THE DON Through the Steppes, see there he glances! Silent flood glad hailed by me,-- Thy far distant sons do proffer Through me, greeting fond to thee! Every stream knows thee as brother, Don, thou river boasted wide! The Araxes and Euphrates Send thee greeting as they glide. Fresh and strengthened for pursuing, Scenting home within thy gleam-- Drink again the Don'ish horses, Flowing boundary, of thy stream! Faithful Don! There also greet thee Thy true warriors bold and free-- Let thy vineyard's foaming bubbles In the glass be spilled to thee! PUSHKIN. _The valley of the Don is the home of the Russian Cossack_. THE CAUCAS The Caucas lies before my feet! I stand where Glaciers gleam, beside a precipice rock-ribbed; An eagle that has soared from off some distant cliff, Lawless as I, sweeps through the radiant air! Here I see streams at their sources up-welling, The grim avalanches unrolling and swelling! The soft cloudy convoys are stretched forth below, Tattered by thronging mad torrents descending; Beneath them the naked rocks downward are bending, Still deeper, the wild shrubs and sparse herbage grow; But yonder the forests stand verdant in flora And birds are a'twitter in choiring chorus. Yonder, cliff-nested-are dwellings of mortals, There pasture the lambs in sweet blossoming meadows-- There couch the herds in the cool deepening shadows-- There roar the Aragua's blue sparkling waters, And lurketh the bandit safe hid in lone caverns, Where Terek, wild sporting, is cutting the azure! It leaps and it howls like some ravening beast At first sight of feeding, through grating of iron-- It roars on the shore with a furious purring, It licks on the pebbles with eagerest greed. Vain struggle and rancor and hatred, alas! 'Tis enchained and subdued by the unheeding mass. PUSHKIN. THE CLOISTER ON KASBEK KASBEK, thy regal canopy High o'er all peaks revealed I see By an eternal icy glare. Hanging in cloudless glory ever-- Like to an ark thy cloister there; This world disturbing thy peace never, Blest realm of joy remote in air! Ah could I at thy mercy's threshold, From durance cursed set myself free, And in thine own etherial cloisters Near thy Creator ever be! PUSHKIN. GOBLINS OP THE STEPPES