Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

50HIDDEN POETRY.

where the promenaders raised clouds of dust. The summers of Athens are long, but the days are short, and, owing to the sea-breeze, the air is scarcely hotter than it is at Moscow during the short northern heats. The insupportable summer of this year is, however, now nearly over; the nights return, and winter will soon follow. Beyond the fair, the view of the distant pine-forests that surround the city with a girdle of mourning, the slowly decreasing tints of a long twilight, all tended to heighten the effect of the monotonous landscape of the north, upon whose face poetry is written in a mystic tongue — a tongue which we do not understand.

In treading this oppressed earth I hear, without comprehending them, the Lamentations of an unknown Jeremiah. Despotism must give birth to prophets; —the future is the paradise of slaves and the hell of tyrants ! A few notes of a plaintive song, oblique, deceitful, furtive glances — easily interpret to me the thoughts that spring in the hearts of this people: but youth, which, little valued though it be, is more favourable to study than riper age, could alone teach me thoroughly all the mysteries of their poetry of sorrow. I congratulate myself on havino` seen this festival, so devoid of gaiety, but, likewise, so different from those of other lands. The Cossacks were to be seen in great numbers among the promenaders and the drinkers who filled tíie square. They formed silent groups around singers, whose piercing voices chanted forth melancholy words set to a softly pleasing tune, although its rhythm was strongly marked. The air was the national son«· of the Don Cossacks. It has a kind of resemblance to