Dedication

This is for you - but will you bear
My faint and melancholy Muse?
Should distant longing cause you fear?
And will your gentle soul refuse
To read a poet's dedication?
Could it confront a bolted door;
As once a lover's declaration
Remained unanswered, long before?
Listen awhile: the chords I played
Were dear to you, in days gone by:
And now, by cunning fate betrayed,
On one dear joy I still rely:
Your latest words are always mine -
Though dreary parting came at last:
Treasured within a sacred shrine,
They hold my soul forever fast.

PART ONE

Far as the questing eye can stray
His horses range: the steppe is wide
And rich in pasture: Kochubey
Prospers in wealth and Cossack pride.
Around his farmstead gardens grow;
Poltava, makes a proud display
With silver, satin, furs on show:
(And more is safely locked away).
But where is Kochubey's delight
His pride and joy? No golden hoard
Extorted from the Tartar foe;
No long-maned horses free to roam;
Nor yet his proud ancestral home:
An only child - bewitching sight -
Brings honour to the Cossack Lord.

Mariya reigns as beauty's queen;
(And all Poltava town approves)
Fresh as the flower of spring that grows
Within the forest glade unseen;
Strong as the poplar standing tall
Upon the heights of Kiev. She moves
Serenely - like a swan that glides
Across a calm unruffled mere;
Or swiftly, like a startled deer.
Her breast is white as ocean spray:
Those raven locks, in clusters, fall
Like clouds around her shapely brow.
Her sparkling eyes command the day;
Her mouth can match the reddest rose....
So glorious is the girl's renown!
Yet modesty and maiden truth
(As much as comeliness and youth)
Adorn her noble name... and now
Young suitors muster - far and wide -
From all Ukraine and Russia too.
But still she dreads the wedding crown
(A woman's chain!) and turns them down...