But it is as a poet and as a lyrical poet that Alexis Tolstoy is most widely known. Versatile with a versatility that recalls Pushkin, he writes epical ballads on Russian, Northern, and even Scottish themes, and dramatic poems on Don Juan, St. John Damascene, and Mary Magdalene; and, besides these, a whole series of personal lyrics, which are full of charm, tenderness, music and colour, harmonious in form and transparent. No Russian poet since Pushkin has written such tender love lyrics, and nobody has sung the Russian spring, the Russian summer, and the Russian autumn with such tender lyricism. His poem on the early spring, when the fern is still tightly curled, the shepherd's note still but half heard in the morning, and the birch trees just green, is one of the most tender, fresh, and perfect expressions of first love, morning, spring, dew, and dawn in the world's literature. His songs have inspired Tchaikovsky and other composers. The strongest and highest chord he struck is in his St. John Damascene; this contains a magnificent dirge for the dead which can bear comparison even with the _Dies Iræ_ for majesty, solemn pathos, and plangent rhythm.
His pictures of landscapes have a peculiar charm. The following is an attempt at a translation--
"Through the slush and the ruts of the highway, By the side of the dam of the stream, Where the fisherman's nets are drying, The carriage jogs on, and I dream.
I dream, and I look at the highway, At the sky that is sullen and grey, At the lake with its shelving reaches, And the curling smoke far away.
By the dam, with a cheerless visage Walks a Jew, who is ragged and sere. With a thunder of foam and of splashing, The waters race over the weir.
A boy over there is whistling On a hemlock flute of his make; And the wild ducks get up in a panic And call as they sweep from the lake.
And near the old mill some workmen Are sitting upon the green ground, With a wagon of sacks, a cart horse Plods past with a lazy sound.
It all seems to me so familiar, Although I have never been here, The roof of that house out yonder, And the boy, and the wood, and the weir.
And the voice of the grumbling mill-wheel, And that rickety barn, I know, I have been here and seen this already, And forgotten it all long ago.