No More Learning

Moscow! How much is in the phrase
For every loyal Russian breast!
How much is in that word expressed!

[Note 73: The aspect of Moscow, especially as seen from the Sparrow
Hills, a low range bordering the river Moskva at a short distance
from the city, is unique and splendid. It possesses several domes
completely plated with gold and some twelve hundred spires most of
which are surmounted by a golden cross. At the time of sunset they
seem literally tipped with flame. It was from this memorable spot
that Napoleon and the Grand Army first obtained a glimpse at the
city of the Tsars. There are three hundred and seventy churches in
Moscow. The Kremlin itself is however by far the most interesting
object to the stranger. ]

XXXV

Lo! compassed by his grove of oaks,
Petrovski Palace! Gloomily
His recent glory he invokes.
Here, drunk with his late victory,
Napoleon tarried till it please
Moscow approach on bended knees,
Time-honoured Kremlin's keys present.
Not so! My Moscow never went
To seek him out with bended head.
No gift she bears, no feast proclaims,
But lights incendiary flames
For the impatient chief instead.
From hence engrossed in thought profound
He on the conflagration frowned. (74)

[Note 74: Napoleon on his arrival in Moscow on the 14th September
took up his quarters in the Kremlin, but on the 16th had to
remove to the Petrovski Palace or Castle on account of the
conflagration which broke out in all quarters of the city. He
however returned to the Kremlin on the 19th September. The Palace
itself is placed in the midst of extensive grounds just outside
the city, on the road to Tver, i. e. to the northwest. It is
perhaps worthy of remark, as one amongst numerous circumstances
proving how extensively the poet interwove his own life-experiences
with the plot of this poem, that it was by this road that he
himself must have been in the habit of approaching Moscow from his
favourite country residence of Mikhailovskoe, in the province of
Pskoff. ]

XXXVI

Adieu, thou witness of our glory,
Petrovski Palace; come, astir!
Drive on! the city barriers hoary
Appear; along the road of Tver
The coach is borne o'er ruts and holes,
Past women, sentry-boxes, rolls,
Past palaces and nunneries,
Lamp-posts, shops, sledges, families,
Bokharians, peasants, beds of greens,
Boulevards, belfries, milliners,
Huts, chemists, Cossacks, shopkeepers
And fashionable magazines,
Balconies, lion's heads on doors,
Jackdaws on every spire--in scores. (75)

[Note 75: The first line refers to the prevailing shape of the
cast-iron handles which adorn the _porte cocheres_. The
Russians are fond of tame birds--jackdaws, pigeons, starlings,
etc. , abound in Moscow and elsewhere. ]

XXXVII

The weary way still incomplete,
An hour passed by--another--till,
Near Khariton's in a side street
The coach before a house stood still.
At an old aunt's they had arrived
Who had for four long years survived
An invalid from lung complaint.