That I am not girt round with human scorn,
Let me but sleep once more upon thy gentle breast,
Forgetting in my childish, deeply-dreaming rest
The loss and failure of my life forlorn!

NADSON.

CALL HIM NOT DEAD

Call him not dead,--he lives!
Ah you forget
Though the pyre lies in ruin the fires upward sweep,
The string of the harp is broken but her chords still weep,
The rose is cut but it is blooming yet!

NADSON.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

ALEXANDER SERGJEWITSCH PUSHKIN was born at Moscow, May 26, 1799. His
first poetical influence came from his nurse who taught him Russian
tales, legends and proverbs, and to whom, with loving recognition, he
was grateful to the end of his life. His grandmother and this nurse
taught him to read and write. In his seventh year he began the study of
foreign languages; German, French,--which was as his mother tongue to
him,--and mathematics, which he hated. At nine the passion of reading
possessed him and he devoured his father's library, which included the
French erotics, Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Encyclopedists. His own
first poetical work was indeed written in French. In 1811 he was sent to
the school then just opened, at Tzarskoe Selo near Petersburg. Here,
however, he learned little, the students being more interested in
drinking bouts and platonic relations with barmaids and actresses; in
spite of which the art of poetry was worshiped and Pushkin with others
among his friends published a journal in manuscript that circulated
their own contributions. He was later graduated from the Alexandrovsky
Lyceum, the highest and most splendid civil school of that time, and
entered the department of Foreign Affairs. Although he retained his
entire sympathy with the poetic brotherhood, he now frequented the
salons of the titled aristocracy and gave himself up to the vortex of
luxurious society. Because of his political satires and too free
opposition to the government, he was sent away from Petersburg in 1820,
and attached to the Governor of the South Russian Colonies. Here he fell
ill and went to the Caucas for recovery. It was in the Crimea that he
learned to know and wonder over Byron. He remained three years in
Kischinew,--in the service chiefly of wine, women and cards. In 1823 he
went to Odessa as attache of the General Governor Count Woronzow, whom
he pursued with biting epigram,--until in 1824 the poet of "Russlan and
Ludimi