Alexander Brusilov

“ Through dreary wastes, and weep each other's woe,
Where round some mould'ring tower pale ivy creeps,
And low-brow'd rocks hang nodding o'er the deeps.
Sudden you mount, you beckon from the skies;
Clouds interpose, waves roar, and winds arise. ”

“ The long silence of life without an adventure or a change, the forlorn gaze out at windows which never show any one coming who can rouse the slightest interest in the mind, the endless years and days which pass and pass, carrying away the bloom, extinguishing the lights of youth, bringing a dreary middle age before which the very soul shrinks, while yet the sufferer feels how strong is the current of life in her own veins, and how capable she is of all the active duties of existence—this was the essence and soul of the existence she knew best. ”

“ The great Alcides, every labour past, Had still this monster to subdue at last. Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray Each star of meaner merit fades away! Oppressed we feel the beam directly beat, Those suns of glory please not till they set. ”

“ His native faculty, indeed, seems rather fine than powerful—rather timid than daring, and resembles rather the petal of a rose peeping out into the summer air, which seems scarce warm enough for its shrinking loveliness, than the feather of the wing of a great eagle, dipping into the night tempest, which raves around the inaccessible rock of his birthplace. ”

“ The heat of the day had gradually decreased, and a light breeze arose, seeming like the respiration of nature on awakening from the burning siesta of the south. A delicious zephyr played along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and wafted from shore to shore the sweet perfume of plants, mingled with the fresh smell of the sea. ”

“ Kate sat opposite gazing at him, as if she could read the contents through his countenance; and although that morning she had risen with the full conviction that the anticipated letter would only prove their anxiety to be groundless, she now felt the terrible, creeping, gnawing, sickening sensation of doubt and dread which makes the hand so cold, and the eye so dim, when felt in its full force. ”

“ Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.
See some strange comfort every state attend,
And pride bestowed on all, a common friend;
See some fit passion every age supply,
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. ”

“ Then, ages hence, when all my woes are o'er, When this rebellious heart shall beat no more; If ever chance two wandering lovers brings To Paraclete's white walls and silver springs, O'er the pale marble shall they join their heads, And drink the falling tears each other sheds ”

“ But, sage historians! 'tis your task to prove One action conduct; one, heroic love. 'Tis from high life high characters are drawn; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn; A judge is just, a chancellor juster still; A gownman, learn'd; a bishop, what you will; Wise, if a minister; but, if a king, More wise, more learned, more just, more everything. Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate, Born where Heaven's influence scarce can penetrate: In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like, They please as beauties, here as wonders strike. ”

“ If Nature thundered in his opening ears, And stunned him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill? Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies? ”

“ Breathe on her lips, and in her bosom play!
In Delia's hand this toy is fatal found,
Nor could that fabled dart more surely wound:
Both gifts destructive to the givers prove;
Alike both lovers fall by those they love. ”

“ Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where'er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes. ”

“ Behind him, blacker than the sea, blacker than the sky, rose phantom-like the vast stone structure, whose projecting crags seemed like arms extended to seize their prey, and on the highest rock was a torch lighting two figures. ”

“ His military career began in the Caucasus. His courage and capacities brought him to notice in the war with Turkey in 1877-8. The greater part of his military life was passed at the cavalry school for officers in St. Petersburg, of which he became director in 1900. Well acquainted with cavalry technique, of great erudition, he was very useful in this capacity. In 1905 General Brussilov commanded the second guard cavalry division, in 1909 an army corps, and somewhat later he was assistant to the commander-in -chief of the Warsaw military district. ”

“ But wherefore all this labour, all this strife? For fame, for riches, for a noble wife? Shall one whom nature, learning, birth, conspired To form not to admire but be admired, Sigh, while his Chloe blind to wit and worth Weds the rich dulness of some son of earth? Yet time ennobles, or degrades each line; It brightened Craggs's, and may darken thine: And what is fame? the meanest have their day, The greatest can but blaze and pass away. ”

“ Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks, now fading at the blast of death:
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. ”

“ Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts, 220 While from the bounded level of our mind, Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind; But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise, New distant scenes of endless science rise! ”

“ Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortured ghosts.
But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see! the tortur'd ghosts respire,
See shady forms advance!
Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still;
Ixion rests upon his wheel,
And the pale spectres dance!
The furies sink upon their iron beds,
And snakes uncurl'd hang list'ning round their heads. ”

“ Smit with the love of sister-arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame; Like friendly colours found them both unite, And each from each contract new strength and light. How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day, While summer suns roll unperceived away! ”

“ As on the land while here the ocean gains, In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; Thus in the soul while memory prevails, The solid power of understanding fails; Where beams of warm imagination play, The memory's soft figures melt away. ”

“ To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those interests to resign; Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away. ”

“ To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, As fancy opens the quick springs of sense, We ply the memory, we load the brain, Bind rebel wit, and double chain on chain, Confine the thought, to exercise the breath, And keep them in the pale of words till death. ”

“ The young disease that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength: So, cast and mingled with his very frame, The mind's disease, its ruling passion came; Each vital humour which should feed the whole, Soon flows to this, in body and in soul: Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head, As the mind opens, and its functions spread, Imagination plies her dangerous art, And pours it all upon the peccant part. Nature its mother, habit is its nurse; Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse ”

“ Critics I saw, that other names deface, And fix their own, with labour, in their place: Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd, Or disappear'd, and left the first behind. 40 Nor was the work impair'd by storms alone, But felt the approaches of too warm a sun; For Fame, impatient of extremes, decays Not more by envy than excess of praise. Yet part no injuries of heaven could feel, Like crystal faithful to the graving steel: The rock's high summit, in the temple's shade, Nor heat could melt, nor beating storm invade. ”

“ Thy trees, fair Windsor! now shall leave their woods, And half thy forests rush into the floods, Bear Britain's thunder, and her cross display, To the bright regions of the rising day; Tempt icy seas, where scarce the waters roll, Where clearer flames glow round the frozen pole; Or under southern skies exalt their sails, Led by new stars, and borne by spicy gales! 390 For me the balm shall bleed, and amber flow, The coral redden, and the ruby glow, The pearly shell its lucid globe infold, And Phoebus warm the ripening ore to gold. ”

“ Oh come and receive the mighty honours: the time draws nigh, O beloved offspring of the gods, O great increase of Jove! The uncultivated mountains send shouts of joy to the stars, the very rocks sing in verse, the very shrubs cry out, A god, a god! ”

“ I have lost all that bound me to life, death smiles and invites me to repose; I die after my own manner, I die exhausted and broken-spirited, as I fall asleep when I have paced three thousand times round my cell. ”

“ Heaven seems improved with a superior ray, And the bright arch reflects a double day. The monarch then his solemn silence broke, The still creation listen'd while he spoke; Each sacred accent bears eternal weight, And each irrevocable word is fate. 'How long shall man the wrath of Heaven defy, 300 And force unwilling vengeance from the sky? ”

“ That Aristotle, the prince of philosophers and supreme master of the sphere of knowledge, should be called upon to train the mind of Alexander, the conqueror of the world, seems a combination so romantic, that it has come to be thought that it must have been the mere invention of some sophist or rhetorician. This, however, is an unnecessary scepticism, for antiquity is unanimous in accepting the tradition, and there are no circumstances that we know of which are inconsistent with it. ”

“ At half mankind when generous Manly raves,
All know ’tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves:
When universal homage Umbra pays,
All see ’tis vice, and itch of vulgar praise.
When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen,
While one there is who charms us with his spleen. ”

“ Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence: Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree, And height of bliss but height of charity. God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. ”

“ And is there magic but what dwells in love!
Resound, ye Hills, resound my mournful strains!
I'll fly from shepherds, flocks, and flow'ry plains;
From shepherds, flocks, and plains, I may remove,
Forsake mankind, and all the world,—but Love! ”

“ One simile, that solitary shines In the dry desert of a thousand lines, Or lengthened thought that gleams through many a page, Has sanctified whole poems for an age. I lose my patience, and I own it too, When works are censured, not as bad but new; While if our elders break all reason's laws, These fools demand not pardon, but applause. ”

“ Their virtue fixed; ’tis fixed as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest:
The rising tempest puts in act the soul,
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.
On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale;
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.
Passions, like elements, though born to fight,
Yet, mixed and softened, in his work unite:
These, ’tis enough to temper and employ;
But what composes man, can man destroy? ”

“ The wood supports the plain, the parts unite, And strength of shade contends with strength of light; A waving glow the bloomy beds display, Blushing in bright diversities of day, With silver-quivering rills meandered o'er-- Enjoy them, you! ”

“ He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star, May tell why Heaven has made us as we are. ”

“ In all, let Nature never be forgot. But treat the goddess like a modest fair, Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare; Let not each beauty everywhere be spied, Where half the skill is decently to hide. He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds, Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds. ”

“ When I listen to you, and hear in the tones of your voice more even than in your words that you are my friend, that you really care for me, that it will be a real joy to you to see me rise above myself, I feel that I can live and strive and be something more than a galvanized corpse. ”

“ That POWER who bids the ocean ebb and flow, Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain, Through reconciled extremes of drought and rain, Builds life on death, on change duration founds, And gives th' eternal wheels to know their rounds. Riches, like insects, when concealed they lie, Wait but for wings, and in their season fly. ”

“ This vault of air, this congregated ball, Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall, There are, my friend! whose philosophic eyes Look through, and trust the ruler with his skies, To him commit the hour, the day, the year, And view this dreadful all without a fear. ”

“ Taught power's due use to people and to kings, Taught nor to slack, nor strain its tender strings, The less, or greater, set so justly true, That touching one must strike the other too; Till jarring interests, of themselves create The according music of a well-mixed state. ”

“ Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend; The young dismiss'd to wander earth or air, There stops the instinct, and there ends the care; The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds, another race. ”

“ Or deeming meanest what we greatest call, Behold thee glorious only in thy fall. 20 And sure, if aught below the seats divine Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine: A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, Above all pain, all passion, and all pride, The rage of power, the blast of public breath, The lust of lucre, and the dread of death. In vain to deserts thy retreat is made; The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade: 'Tis hers the brave man's latest steps to trace, Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace. ”