What Shall I Think?...

What shall I think when I come to die, if only I am in a condition to think anything then?

Shall I think how little use I have made of my life, how I have slumbered, dozed through it, how little I have known how to enjoy its gifts?

'What? is this death? So soon? Impossible! Why, I have had no time to do anything yet.... I have only been making ready to begin!'

Shall I recall the past, and dwell in thought on the few bright moments I have lived through - on precious images and faces?

Will my ill deeds come back to my mind, and will my soul be stung by the burning pain of remorse too late?

Shall I think of what awaits me beyond the grave ... and in truth does anything await me there?

No.... I fancy I shall try not to think, and shall force myself to take interest in some trifle simply to distract my own attention from the menacing darkness, which is black before me.

I once saw a dying man who kept complaining they would not let him have hazel-nuts to munch!... and only in the depths of his fast-dimming eyes, something quivered and struggled like the torn wing of a bird wounded to death....

August 1879.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His novel 'Fathers and Sons' is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction. Turgenev's work is often considered a reflection of the social and political atmosphere of his time, marked by his opposition to serfdom and his advocacy of liberal reforms. He spent much of his later life in Western Europe and was a contemporary of fellow Russian literary figures Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Stay!

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

The Rose

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

Two Stanzas

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

My Adversary

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

English

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To-Morrow! To-Morrow!

How empty, dull, and useless is almost every day when it is spent! How few the traces it leaves behind it! How meaningless, how foolish those hours as they coursed by one after another!

And yet it is man's wish to exist; he prizes life, he rests hopes on it, on himself, on the future.... Oh, what blessings he looks for from the future!

But why does he imagine that other coming days will not be like this day he has just lived through?

Nay, he does not even imagine it. He likes not to think at all, and he does well.

'Ah, to-morrow, to-morrow!' he comforts himself, till 'to-morrow' pitches him into the grave.

Well, and once in the grave, thou hast no choice, thou doest no more thinking.

May 1879.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

The Old Man

Days of darkness, of dreariness, have come.... Thy own infirmities, the sufferings of those dear to thee, the chill and gloom of old age. All that thou hast loved, to which thou hast given thyself irrevocably, is falling, going to pieces. The way is all down-hill.

What canst thou do? Grieve? Complain? Thou wilt aid not thyself nor others that way....

On the bowed and withering tree the leaves are smaller and fewer, but its green is yet the same.

Do thou too shrink within, withdraw into thyself, into thy memories, and there, deep down, in the very depths of the soul turned inwards on itself, thy old life, to which thou alone hast the key, will be bright again for thee, in all the fragrance, all the fresh green, and the grace and power of its spring!

But beware ... look not forward, poor old man!<...

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

On A Friend Recently Dead

    I

    The stream goes fast.
    When this that is the present is the past,
    'Twill be as all the other pasts have been,
    A failing hill, a daily dimming scene,
    A far strange port with foreign life astir
    The ship has left behind, the voyager
    Will never return to; no, nor see again,
    Though with a heart full of longing he may strain
    Back to project himself, and once more count
    The boats, the whitened walls that climbed the mount,
    Mark the cathedral's roof, the gathered spires,
    The vanes, the windows red with sunset's fires,
    The gap of the market-place, and watch again
    The coloured groups of women, and the men
    Lounging at ease along the low stone wall
    That fringed the harbour; and there beyond it all<...

John Collings Squire, Sir

In Mortem Meditare.

DYING THOUGHTS.


As Life's receding sunset fades
    And night descends,
I calmly watch the gathering shades,
As darkness stealthily invades
    And daylight ends.

Earth's span is drawing to its close,
    With every breath;
My pain-racked brain no respite knows,
Yet shrinks it, from the grim repose
    It feels in death.

The curtain falls on Life's last scene,
    The end is neared;
At last I face death's somber screen,
The fleeting joys which intervene
    Have disappeared.

And as a panoramic scroll
    The past unreels;
The mocking past, beyond control,
Though buried, as a parchment roll,
    Its tale reveals.

I stand before the dread, unknown,
    Yet solemn fact;
I see the seeds of foll...

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Nature

I dreamed I had come into an immense underground temple with lofty arched roof. It was filled with a sort of underground uniform light.

In the very middle of the temple sat a majestic woman in a flowing robe of green colour. Her head propped on her hand, she seemed buried in deep thought.

At once I was aware that this woman was Nature herself; and a thrill of reverent awe sent an instantaneous shiver through my inmost soul.

I approached the sitting figure, and making a respectful bow, 'O common Mother of us all!' I cried, 'of what is thy meditation? Is it of the future destinies of man thou ponderest? or how he may attain the highest possible perfection and happiness?'

The woman slowly turned upon me her dark menacing eyes. Her lips moved, and I heard a ringing voice like the clang of iron.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death.

I think when I stand in the presence of Death,
    How futile is earthy endeavor,
If it be, with the flight of the last labored breath,
    The tongue has been silenced forever.

For no message is flashed from the lustreless eyes,
    When clos-ed so languid and weary,
And no voice from the darkness re-echoes our cries,
    In response to the agonized query!

We gaze at the solemn mysterious shroud
    With a vague and insatiate yearning,
And perceive but the sombre exterior cloud,
    With our vision of no discerning.

Not a whispering sound, not a glimmer of light,
    From that shadowy strand uncertain;
But He who ordained the day and night,
    Framed also Death's silent curtain.

Alfred Castner King