Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill My perspective still as they pass; Or else remove me hence unto that hill THE REVIVAL [NFOLD! unfold! take in His light, UN Who makes thy cares more short than night. He deals to all but drowsie eyes; And (what the men of this world miss) Some drops and dews of future bliss. Hark! how the winds have changed their note, And backward life at last comes on. The lofty groves, in express joyes, Reply unto the turtle's voice: And here, in dust and dirt,-oh, here, F RETIREMENT RESH fields and woods! the earth's fair face! Did love to be a country liver, Who to secure pious content Did pitch by groves and wells his tent, Are found: they are the thrones of ill; The dismal sinks where blood is spilled, They are the meek's calm region, where If Eden be on earth at all, 'Tis that which we the country call. D THE PALM-TREE EARE friend, sit down, and bear awhile this shade, Both you and it, had equall liberty With other trees; but now, shut from the breath And air of Eden, like a malcontent, This makes these weights, like death And sin, hang at him; for the more he's bent, It thrives nowhere. Aspire for home; this, Solomon of old, This is the life which, hid above with Christ And spring and grow, a tree ne'er to be priced, Here spirits that have run their race, and fought, And won the fight, and have not feared the frowns Nor loved the smiles of greatness, but have wrought Their Master's will, meet to receive their crowns. Here is the patience of the saints: this tree Is watered by their tears, as flowers are fed Sits here, and numbers all the tears they shed. And weave it for your head against you wake. IVAN VAZOFF (1850-) o the world at large Bulgarian literature is represented by Vazoff alone, an author in whom Bulgarian ethos finds fittest expression. Nothing could be racier of the soil than the poems and romances of Ivan Vazoff, born in 1850 in the little town of Sopot, under the shadow of the Great Balkan. No book was ever more thoroughly and lovingly steeped in local color than his most widely read novel, ‹Under the Yoke.› From the outset his patriotism, poured out year after year in a cause that seemed utterly hopeless, takes a form so exalted as to raise him above the mere delineator of character and gatherer of specimens. As the political aspirations of his nation gradually realized themselves, the writer kept widening the sphere of his sympathy until his patriotism became subservient to his love of humanity. Besides, an irresistible affinity felt in boyhood for writers like Pushkin, Nekrasov, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo could but have a happy effect on a kindred spirit; and when the erstwhile pupil became in turn a master, he summed up his creed in the universal triad, Nature, Love, and God. On a naturally nervous and impetuous style the example set by those masters could but exert a beneficial influence. Who shall say how far a scrupulous choice of words, and a keen ear for the harmonies of verse and prose, may not have tended to rescue the young revolutionist from becoming the ephemeral organ of a political insurrection? Although it was from Victor Hugo that Vazoff drew the motto, De verre pour gémir; d'airain pour résister." (Glass for sorrow, brass for courage), prefixing it to a volume of his poems, still the foreign influence only took the form of a wholesome infusion. Even in the seventies, when a few brave hearts were pushing the cause of emancipation in spite of their cautious countrymen, and when only the very rich could aspire to an education, Bulgaria had preachers of revolution whose eloquence was of no mean order, and the beginnings of a literature. For the men in exile and active warfare against Turkish oppression, who turned so readily from the sword to the pen, looking upon both merely as a means to an end, were nevertheless genuine poets, natural orators, and belonged to a race who in spite of the narrowing of their horizon through four centuries of suffering, could not forget that in past ages, under rulers distinguished for courage or learning, their realm had held a high place among the nations. As young Vazoff's fancy pictured this Golden Age, he could not help contrasting it with the squalid present. His mother had once shown him a picture of Tsar Nicholas I., with the words, <<This is the Tsar of Bulgaria,» and our poet learned to look upon the Sovereign of Russia as the liberator of his nation in bondage. Fortunately for Vazoff, his teacher had seen Russia in his student days, and delighted in telling his pupil stories of that country and in reading from Russian classics. Vazoff easily mastered a language so similar to Bulgarian as Russian. That Bulgarian comes very close to Russian is not always appreciated in Russia itself. At Moscow, in the summer of 1895, a young writer remarked to Vazoff, who had come with the deputation from Bulgaria that laid a wreath on the tomb of Alexander III., «What a pity that the inscription on the wreath is in Russian instead of Bulgarian!» «But it is from beginning to end a Bulgarian inscription that you see there,» returned the poet, compressing into one quick movement the mingled pride and chagrin of centuries. The study of Russian romanticists paved the way to their French prototypes, and the young student at the Gymnasium of Philippopolis turned away in loathing from Greek and Turkish, the languages of commercial intercourse in the Balkans, to the tongue of Lamartine and Hugo. As it happened, Vazoff's first poetic attempt was a translation of La Mère Aveugle) of Béranger. The attar-yielding Valley of Roses, lying between the Stara Planina and the parallel range of the Sredna-Gora, contributed a certain aroma to the new era that ended in complete emancipation from Turkish rule. It was there in 1848, in the free town of Kalofer, clinging to the mountain-side, that the truly inspired poet and revolutionist Boteff was born; and as it happened, his fellow-poet Vazoff, born in the Valley of the Strema, attended school for a short time in the same place, studying Greek under Boteff's father. A boy like Christo Boteff, ardent and high-strung, destined to lay down his life for his country before reaching his thirtieth year, could not have been brought up in surroundings more stimulating to the imagination. It was in a veritable garden of roses that his life began; and he can scarcely write without some mention of the mighty forest that lay so near. His birthplace, founded by the brigand Kalofer and named after him, was one of the few places that by virtue of their remoteness had preserved a measure of independence. Unlike most Bulgarian towns and villages, it had at the centre no Turkish habitation; so that the poet's love of freedom, which was far from being local and national, recognizing the effects of misrule not only in his own country, but in Russia, in Africa, indeed throughout the world, was taken in with the mountain air he breathed. The founder, Kalofer, belonged to a distinct class called haïdouti or brigands (otherwise it is impossible to translate a word half-way between hero and highwayman), whose open hostility to the Turkish government compelled them to take refuge, oftentimes in Rumania, but in mild weather in the stupendous gorges and caverns of the Stara Planina. Boteff was neither one of the earliest nor one of the latest martyrs to the cause. He did not live to shudder at the massacres of the Sredna-Gora, which moved the Emperor of Russia, Alexander II., to come to the relief of Bulgaria, and his son, afterwards Alexander III., to take an active part in the campaign which in 1878 exacted her independence. Boteff's poem on the death of his friend Hadjy-Dimitre is remarkable for its unconscious foreshadowing of his own death, similar in all respects to that of the hero he brooded over with such intense affection: HR HADJY DIMITRE E LIVES, he lives! There on the Balkan's crest, The hero in his youth and might o'erthrown. He hath laid down his gun, in bitter woe Laid down the two halves of his broken sword; Helpless he lies; and at her harvesting Beneath the blazing sky, the startled sun— 'Tis harvest-time,- sing then your mournful staves, Burn fiercely, sun, across a land of slaves! One hero more must die- but hush, my heart! Who falls in fight for liberty's dear sake Can never die;-heaven weeps for him, and earth; By day the eagle lends a hovering shade; The wolf steals softly up to lick his wound; |