Lermontov A Cycle

Lermontov: A Cycle
Three Poems in the Manner of Robert Burns
by Daniil Maksimovich Lazko
Tuapse — 12 May 2026
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Foreword
This small cycle was written to test whether the spirit of Robert Burns — his music, his rough warmth, his refusal of grand abstraction — could be turned toward a subject Burns himself never wrote of: the Russian poet and officer Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov (1814–1841). The two men share more than a brief life. Both wrote out of an intense inwardness rarely permitted by their societies; both kept a fierce private music against the noise of fashion; both died young, and both were misread by their contemporaries before being claimed by time.
The three parts of this cycle move from a single lit room in winter to a roadside scene in the Caucasus, and then to a longer, slower meditation on what remains of a brilliant life once the noise of judgement has died down. A fourth poem — a balladic alternative to the closing — is included as a companion piece. The Scots dialect is used lightly, as patina rather than costume; the aim throughout has been to write English verse that earns its music honestly, without imitation.
Lermontov was an officer, a duellist, a translator of Burns into Russian, and the author of poems and prose that have outlasted the salons and courts that exiled him. He died at twenty-six, in a duel at the foot of Mount Mashuk. The cycle attempts to set him not as a marble figure of national literature, but as he likely was: solitary, severe, young, and unfinished.
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I
The Lonely Lamp

I
A lamp burns low in cauld lodgings,
The window frosts wi' winter's stings,
An' through the pane a wee star clings
    Aboon the snaw;
A young man bends, an' something sings
    That nane can hear ava.
II
His coat is hung, his sabre laid,
His boots stand drying by the grate,
The candle's flame is hauf afraid,
    The wick rins thin;
He writes — an' what his pen has said
    The wind has heard alane.
III
The barracks sleep, the corridors
Are still as kirks ahint their doors,
But in his breast a tempest roars
    That kens nae name —
The samovar gangs cauld, an' pours
    Nae comfort, an' nae hame.
IV
He'll ride the morn through drift an' pine,
Wi' frozen reins an' stiffened spine,
Past mileposts black against the line
    O' lifting day;
The road is his, the stars his sign,
    An' nae man kens the way.
V
They praised him ance in lighted ha's,
They quoted him for his sharp saws,
Syne whispered him through powdered jaws
    When he was gane;
He kent the warmth, he kent the cause,
    He drank his tea alane.
VI
His pen scarts on. The ink rins thin.
He warms his fingers at his chin.
The stove gangs low. He feeds it in
    A lump o' peat.
A dog barks ance, an' then again,
    An' syne the auld clock's beat.
VII
The candle gutters, fails, an' dees;
The window haulds the frozen trees;
A breath o' wind frae northern seas
    Disturbs the pane —
The page lies open on his knees,
    An' will lie there till dawn.
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II
The Night Post

I
The post-house stood by Kazbek's road,
The lamp was smoked, the floor was wet,
The captain stamped his boots an' showed
The driver where his coin was set.
II
A second traveller, slim an' young,
Sat by the stove wi' open book,
A tin mug steaming at his hand,
His greatcoat dryin' on the hook.
III
The captain spoke o' Petersburg —
O' cards an' debts, o' wha had wed,
Wha shot himsel' last Martinmas,
Wha rose, wha fell, wha lost his head.
IV
The young man heard, then quietly said —
His voice was low, his eye was grey,
His finger keepin' tae the page —
“The dead and livin' walk one way.”
V
The captain laughed — then half-way stopped:
The words had cut a finer line
Than any sabre ever chopped,
Or any wit at Court could shine.
VI
He looked again. The lad was thin,
The mouth was firm, the brow was clear,
But something auld had settled in
Ahint the youth that lingered near.
VII
The horses stamped. The driver swore.
The harness rang. The latch was lift.
The traveller rose, took up his glove,
His book — a small, weel-thumbed thing.
VIII
He laid the book upon the bench,
The pages open, plain tae see,
An' bowed — nae bitter, an' nae lang —
An' stepped intae the wind's grey sea.
IX
The captain sat. The kettle hissed.
The candle bent before the door.
He turned the book — he read a page —
An' read it twice, an' read it more.
X
He thought a lang while by the fire,
Then said, half tae himsel' alane:
“Was it but pride, that inward ire? —
Or some deep grief I canna name?”
XI
The road took horse an' man frae sight.
The mountains kept their ancient law.
A single lamp burned through the night
Owre Kazbek's shoulder in the snaw.
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III
Inscription

Set down the drums. The salon lamps are out.
The tongues that judged him sleep, an' wake to doubt.
Cards lie unshuffled; ribbons lose their dye;
The verdict of the season learns to die.
What seemed the world has thinned to powdered air;
The judges drowse, an' nae man kens them there.

He was nae saint. A pride that would not bend
Kept warmer hands frae closing on his end.
He loved, an' wounded. Mocked, an' was beguiled.
He went tae the South a man, an' half a child —
Schooled by the steppe, the post-road, an' the star,
A glove pulled tight against the mountain air.

What killed him? Not the pistol on the hill,
Nor honour's code, nor any rival's will,
Nor he that fired, an' bore the deed for life —
But somewhat older, sharper than the knife:
A wick set burning higher than its oil,
The glass gone black, the morning's wax in soil.

The crowd that scorned him keeps nae graven stane.
Their fame is reckoned. Reckoning is gane.
The Court whase whisper followed him in shame
Lies under grass, an' canna spell its name.
The hand that signed his exile rots in lead;
The mouth that mocked is muted wi' the dead.

What stays is plainer. On a winter road,
A driver's lantern; horses; a light load.
A page o' verse that travels mouth tae mouth.
A boy in a far province kens it south,
Kens it by hairt, an' canna tell ye why
The lines gang deeper than the things they cry.

Time is the judge. Time taks the brilliant loud,
The decorated breast, the gilded crowd,
An' sets them doun, an' shuts the heavy door.
What it lets through is little, an' is more:
A lamp at midnight; mountains in the snaw;
A line that ootlasts him wha wrote it raw;
A young man bending owre a frozen pane —
The wind has read him, an' will read again.
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III — Alternative Version
After the Noise
(a ballad-form closing)
I
The drums are done. The supper rooms grow dark.
Ash settles white and soft on stove and spark.
The names once tossed from carriage door to door
Lie dumb as cards swept underneath the floor.
A thawed boot steams beside an inn-yard flame;
The men ride on, and few recall his name.
II
He was nae made for easy hearth or chair.
Too much cold starlight travelled in him there.
He laughed at praise before the praise grew old,
Yet carried hurt men dinna always hold.
A horse shook frost beside him in the rain;
He stroked its neck, then took the road again.
III
What broke him was nae single shot or scar.
The wound had ridden quietly afar.
Like lamps that burn too high in winter rooms,
He fed the fire that slowly eats and blooms.
The blackened glass, the oil gone low by dawn —
The flame still rose when wiser flames were gone.
IV
Now grass grows thick where idle judges spoke.
Rain stains the seals on letters no one broke.
The mouths that mocked are shut wi' earth and clay;
The hands that signed their verdicts rot away.
But still some lad, far south or north in snaw,
Reads by dim light, and feels the inward thaw.
V
Time keeps but little. Less than men suppose.
A road. A wind. The mark a spurheel knows.
A page turned soft by many stranger hands.
A voice that somehow outlives courts and lands.
A lamp at midnight burning through the pane —
The wind has read him, and will read again.
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Selected Lines
From “Inscription”

What killed him? Not the pistol on the hill,
Nor honour's code, nor any rival's will,
But somewhat older, sharper than the knife:
A wick set burning higher than its oil.
;   ;   ;
A lamp at midnight; mountains in the snaw;
A line that ootlasts him wha wrote it raw;
A young man bending owre a frozen pane —
The wind has read him, an' will read again.
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A Note on the Cycle
Form, Tone, and Argument
The cycle is built in three distinct verse-forms, each chosen for a different register of attention. Part I — “The Lonely Lamp” — uses the Standard Habbie stanza (aaabab), the six-line verse made famous by Burns in “To a Mouse” and “To a Louse.” The form is intimate, song-like, and bears a long-stored Scots warmth. It is the appropriate vessel for a scene of a young officer-poet writing alone in barracks lodgings on a winter night: the stove, the candle, the page, the page lying open till dawn. Object follows object; no commentary intrudes. The form's natural humility resists rhetorical heightening.
Part II — “The Night Post” — moves outward into ballad quatrains, the older folk measure of narrative verse. A post-house on the Caucasian road; a captain talking of Petersburg gossip; a thin young traveller with a worn book; a single quiet remark — “The dead and livin' walk one way” — that cuts deeper than the captain understands. The poem turns on a gesture rather than a speech: the traveller leaves his book open on the bench and steps into the snow. The captain reads, and re-reads, and asks the question the cycle keeps unanswered: was it but pride, or some deep grief?
Part III — “Inscription” — abandons song and ballad altogether for heroic couplets in iambic pentameter, paragraphed in verse-strophes. The change is deliberate. After the room and the road, the cycle needed a register weighty enough to stand as a final judgement — not a song, but a stone. The Scots dialect, lighter here, sits as patina rather than as music. The couplet form recalls the long English tradition of inscription and elegy from Pope and Johnson onward, and lets the poem move with the deliberate gravity of cut letters: “The hand that signed his exile rots in lead; / The mouth that mocked is muted wi' the dead.”
The alternative closing — “After the Noise” — was written as a companion piece in ballad form, to demonstrate that the same argument can be carried in a different musical key. Where “Inscription” is stone, “After the Noise” is wind. Both end on the same image — a lamp at midnight, a wind that has read him and will read him again — but the ballad version arrives at that image through the rhythm of a road, while the inscription arrives at it through the rhythm of a chisel.
On Lermontov
Lermontov was a contradiction his society could not absorb: a hussar officer who wrote with a precision the Court could not forgive, and a poet whose pride was indistinguishable, even to himself, from his loneliness. He translated Burns into Russian — among the first to do so seriously — and the small fact is worth keeping in mind, since the cycle's central premise is that Burns's plain music and Lermontov's severe inwardness are nearer kin than either tradition has admitted.
The cycle does not attempt biography. The named places — Kazbek, Mashuk — are real, but the scenes are imagined. The aim is to render an inward weather rather than a documented life: the cold lamp, the witnessed stillness, the stone. What survives, the poems argue, is not the verdict of the season nor the gossip of the salon, but a line of verse a boy in a far province learns by heart without quite knowing why.
On the Use of Scots
The Scots dialect is used sparingly throughout, and is concentrated in Parts I and II where the verse-forms invite it. Words such as cauld, ken, nae, syne, frae, gangs, scarts, owre, ootlasts are drawn from the working register of Burns and his successors, and are used only where they earn their place by sound and weight. Cartoonish or excessive dialect — the curse of much modern Scots pastiche — has been avoided. In Part III, the Scots thins almost to invisibility, in keeping with the inscriptional register.
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Colophon
Compiled in Tuapse, on the Black Sea coast,
on the twelfth day of May, the year two thousand and twenty-six.

Daniil Maksimovich Lazko

— in memory of Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov,
officer, poet, and translator of Burns.


Лермонтов: Цикл
Три стихотворения в духе Роберта Бёрнса
Лазько Даниил Максимович
Туапсе — 12 мая 2026
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Предисловие
Этот небольшой цикл написан как опыт перенесения интонации Роберта Бёрнса — его музыки, грубоватого тепла, отказа от высокопарной абстракции — на тему, которой сам Бёрнс никогда не касался: на фигуру Михаила Юрьевича Лермонтова (1814–1841), русского поэта и офицера. Двух этих людей связывает больше, чем кажется. Оба писали из той внутренней напряжённости, какую их общества не готовы были принять; оба сохраняли свою тихую музыку наперекор салонному шуму; оба умерли молодыми и оба были неверно прочитаны современниками прежде, чем их прочло время.
Три части цикла движутся от единственной освещённой комнаты зимней ночью — к придорожной сцене на Кавказе — и далее к более медленному, инскрипционному размышлению о том, что остаётся от блестящей жизни, когда стихнет шум приговоров. Четвёртое стихотворение — балладный вариант финала — приведено как сопроводительная вещь. Шотландский диалект использован сдержанно, как патина, а не как костюм; задача всюду состояла в том, чтобы написать английский стих, который держится собственной музыкой, а не подражанием.
Лермонтов был офицером, дуэлянтом, переводчиком Бёрнса на русский и автором стихов и прозы, переживших те салоны и тот двор, что отправили его в ссылку. Он погиб в двадцать шесть лет, на дуэли у подножия горы Машук. Цикл пытается представить его не как мраморную фигуру национальной литературы, а таким, каким он, по всей видимости, был: одиноким, строгим, молодым и незавершённым.
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О цикле
Форма, тон, замысел
Цикл выстроен в трёх различных стиховых формах, каждая из которых выбрана для своего регистра внимания. Часть I — «The Lonely Lamp» («Одинокая лампа») — написана так называемой Standard Habbie, шестистрочной строфой с рифмовкой aaabab, прославленной Бёрнсом в стихотворениях «To a Mouse» и «To a Louse». Эта форма камерна, песенна, и несёт в себе долгое, устоявшееся шотландское тепло. Она оказалась подходящим сосудом для сцены молодого офицера-поэта, пишущего в одиночестве в холодной квартире зимней ночью: печь, свеча, страница, страница, остающаяся открытой до рассвета. Один предмет следует за другим; никакой комментарий не вторгается. Естественная скромность формы сопротивляется риторическому подъёму.
Часть II — «The Night Post» («Ночной этап») — выходит наружу, в балладные катрены, в старинный народный размер повествовательного стиха. Почтовая станция на кавказской дороге; капитан, говорящий о петербургских сплетнях; худой молодой путник с потрёпанной книгой; одна тихая реплика — «The dead and livin' walk one way» («живые и мёртвые ходят одной дорогой») — которая режет глубже, чем капитан способен понять. Стихотворение поворачивается на жесте, а не на словах: путник оставляет книгу открытой на скамье и уходит в снег. Капитан читает её, и перечитывает, и задаёт вопрос, на который цикл оставляет ответ открытым: была ли это только гордость, или некая глубже лежащая печаль?
Часть III — «Inscription» («Надпись») — отказывается и от песни, и от баллады в пользу героических двустиший пятистопного ямба, разбитых на стиховые абзацы. Перемена сознательна. После комнаты и дороги циклу был нужен регистр, достаточно тяжёлый, чтобы встать как окончательный суд — не песня, но камень. Шотландский диалект здесь облегчён и работает как патина, а не как музыка. Сама форма двустишия отсылает к долгой английской традиции элегии и надписи — от Поупа и Джонсона — и позволяет стихотворению двигаться с медленной тяжестью высеченных букв: «The hand that signed his exile rots in lead; / The mouth that mocked is muted wi' the dead» («Рука, подписавшая его ссылку, истлела под свинцом; / Уста, что насмехались, замолчены смертью»).
Альтернативный финал — «After the Noise» («После шума») — написан как стихотворение-спутник в балладной форме, чтобы показать, что тот же замысел может быть проведён в другой музыкальной тональности. Там, где «Inscription» — это камень, «After the Noise» — это ветер. Оба заканчиваются одним и тем же образом — лампой в полночь и ветром, который уже прочёл его и прочтёт снова, — но балладная версия приходит к этому образу ритмом дороги, а инскрипционная — ритмом резца.
О Лермонтове
Лермонтов был противоречием, которого его общество не сумело усвоить: гусарский офицер, писавший с точностью, какую Двор не мог ему простить, и поэт, чья гордость была для него самого неотличима от его одиночества. Он переводил Бёрнса на русский — среди первых, кто делал это всерьёз, — и этот небольшой факт стоит держать в уме, поскольку центральное допущение цикла состоит в том, что простая музыка Бёрнса и суровая внутренняя жизнь Лермонтова находятся в более близком родстве, чем готова была признать любая из двух традиций.
Цикл не пытается быть биографией. Названные места — Казбек, Машук — реальны, но сцены вымышлены. Задача — передать внутреннюю погоду, а не задокументированную жизнь: холодная лампа, тихое свидетельство, камень. То, что остаётся, утверждают стихи, — это не вердикт сезона и не салонная сплетня, но строка стиха, которую мальчик в далёкой провинции выучивает наизусть, сам не вполне понимая почему.
Об использовании шотландского диалекта
Диалект Scots применён сдержанно по всему циклу и сосредоточен в первой и второй частях, где сама стиховая форма к нему располагает. Слова cauld, ken, nae, syne, frae, gangs, scarts, owre, ootlasts взяты из рабочего словаря Бёрнса и его наследников и поставлены только там, где они оправдывают себя звуком и весом. От карикатурного, чрезмерного диалекта — проклятия большей части современных стилизаций под Scots — здесь сознательно отказано. В третьей части шотландское практически истончается до невидимости, в соответствии с инскрипционным регистром.
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I
The Lonely Lamp
«Одинокая лампа»

I
A lamp burns low in cauld lodgings,
The window frosts wi' winter's stings,
An' through the pane a wee star clings
    Aboon the snaw;
A young man bends, an' something sings
    That nane can hear ava.
II
His coat is hung, his sabre laid,
His boots stand drying by the grate,
The candle's flame is hauf afraid,
    The wick rins thin;
He writes — an' what his pen has said
    The wind has heard alane.
III
The barracks sleep, the corridors
Are still as kirks ahint their doors,
But in his breast a tempest roars
    That kens nae name —
The samovar gangs cauld, an' pours
    Nae comfort, an' nae hame.
IV
He'll ride the morn through drift an' pine,
Wi' frozen reins an' stiffened spine,
Past mileposts black against the line
    O' lifting day;
The road is his, the stars his sign,
    An' nae man kens the way.
V
They praised him ance in lighted ha's,
They quoted him for his sharp saws,
Syne whispered him through powdered jaws
    When he was gane;
He kent the warmth, he kent the cause,
    He drank his tea alane.
VI
His pen scarts on. The ink rins thin.
He warms his fingers at his chin.
The stove gangs low. He feeds it in
    A lump o' peat.
A dog barks ance, an' then again,
    An' syne the auld clock's beat.
VII
The candle gutters, fails, an' dees;
The window haulds the frozen trees;
A breath o' wind frae northern seas
    Disturbs the pane —
The page lies open on his knees,
    An' will lie there till dawn.
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II
The Night Post
«Ночной этап»

I
The post-house stood by Kazbek's road,
The lamp was smoked, the floor was wet,
The captain stamped his boots an' showed
The driver where his coin was set.
II
A second traveller, slim an' young,
Sat by the stove wi' open book,
A tin mug steaming at his hand,
His greatcoat dryin' on the hook.
III
The captain spoke o' Petersburg —
O' cards an' debts, o' wha had wed,
Wha shot himsel' last Martinmas,
Wha rose, wha fell, wha lost his head.
IV
The young man heard, then quietly said —
His voice was low, his eye was grey,
His finger keepin' tae the page —
“The dead and livin' walk one way.”
V
The captain laughed — then half-way stopped:
The words had cut a finer line
Than any sabre ever chopped,
Or any wit at Court could shine.
VI
He looked again. The lad was thin,
The mouth was firm, the brow was clear,
But something auld had settled in
Ahint the youth that lingered near.
VII
The horses stamped. The driver swore.
The harness rang. The latch was lift.
The traveller rose, took up his glove,
His book — a small, weel-thumbed thing.
VIII
He laid the book upon the bench,
The pages open, plain tae see,
An' bowed — nae bitter, an' nae lang —
An' stepped intae the wind's grey sea.
IX
The captain sat. The kettle hissed.
The candle bent before the door.
He turned the book — he read a page —
An' read it twice, an' read it more.
X
He thought a lang while by the fire,
Then said, half tae himsel' alane:
“Was it but pride, that inward ire? —
Or some deep grief I canna name?”
XI
The road took horse an' man frae sight.
The mountains kept their ancient law.
A single lamp burned through the night
Owre Kazbek's shoulder in the snaw.
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III
Inscription
«Надпись»

Set down the drums. The salon lamps are out.
The tongues that judged him sleep, an' wake to doubt.
Cards lie unshuffled; ribbons lose their dye;
The verdict of the season learns to die.
What seemed the world has thinned to powdered air;
The judges drowse, an' nae man kens them there.

He was nae saint. A pride that would not bend
Kept warmer hands frae closing on his end.
He loved, an' wounded. Mocked, an' was beguiled.
He went tae the South a man, an' half a child —
Schooled by the steppe, the post-road, an' the star,
A glove pulled tight against the mountain air.

What killed him? Not the pistol on the hill,
Nor honour's code, nor any rival's will,
Nor he that fired, an' bore the deed for life —
But somewhat older, sharper than the knife:
A wick set burning higher than its oil,
The glass gone black, the morning's wax in soil.

The crowd that scorned him keeps nae graven stane.
Their fame is reckoned. Reckoning is gane.
The Court whase whisper followed him in shame
Lies under grass, an' canna spell its name.
The hand that signed his exile rots in lead;
The mouth that mocked is muted wi' the dead.

What stays is plainer. On a winter road,
A driver's lantern; horses; a light load.
A page o' verse that travels mouth tae mouth.
A boy in a far province kens it south,
Kens it by hairt, an' canna tell ye why
The lines gang deeper than the things they cry.

Time is the judge. Time taks the brilliant loud,
The decorated breast, the gilded crowd,
An' sets them doun, an' shuts the heavy door.
What it lets through is little, an' is more:
A lamp at midnight; mountains in the snaw;
A line that ootlasts him wha wrote it raw;
A young man bending owre a frozen pane —
The wind has read him, an' will read again.
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III — Альтернативный вариант
After the Noise
«После шума» — балладный финал
I
The drums are done. The supper rooms grow dark.
Ash settles white and soft on stove and spark.
The names once tossed from carriage door to door
Lie dumb as cards swept underneath the floor.
A thawed boot steams beside an inn-yard flame;
The men ride on, and few recall his name.
II
He was nae made for easy hearth or chair.
Too much cold starlight travelled in him there.
He laughed at praise before the praise grew old,
Yet carried hurt men dinna always hold.
A horse shook frost beside him in the rain;
He stroked its neck, then took the road again.
III
What broke him was nae single shot or scar.
The wound had ridden quietly afar.
Like lamps that burn too high in winter rooms,
He fed the fire that slowly eats and blooms.
The blackened glass, the oil gone low by dawn —
The flame still rose when wiser flames were gone.
IV
Now grass grows thick where idle judges spoke.
Rain stains the seals on letters no one broke.
The mouths that mocked are shut wi' earth and clay;
The hands that signed their verdicts rot away.
But still some lad, far south or north in snaw,
Reads by dim light, and feels the inward thaw.
V
Time keeps but little. Less than men suppose.
A road. A wind. The mark a spurheel knows.
A page turned soft by many stranger hands.
A voice that somehow outlives courts and lands.
A lamp at midnight burning through the pane —
The wind has read him, and will read again.
;
Избранные строки
Из «Inscription»

What killed him? Not the pistol on the hill,
Nor honour's code, nor any rival's will,
But somewhat older, sharper than the knife:
A wick set burning higher than its oil.
;   ;   ;
A lamp at midnight; mountains in the snaw;
A line that ootlasts him wha wrote it raw;
A young man bending owre a frozen pane —
The wind has read him, an' will read again.
;
Об авторе
Лазько Даниил Максимович — Туапсе, Краснодарский край. Работает с поэтическими стилизациями как с формой литературного исследования: каждая стилизация рассматривается как сжатый эксперимент в области ритма, голоса и регистра, доводимый до состояния, в котором ни одной строки нельзя было бы пожелать иной. Настоящий цикл — результат серии редакционных итераций, в ходе которых исходный шотландско-английский голос был последовательно очищен от литературности в пользу вещественной точности, а заключительная часть переведена из песенно-балладного регистра в инскрипционный, более соразмерный фигуре Лермонтова.
;
Колофон
Составлено в Туапсе, на побережье Чёрного моря,
двенадцатого мая две тысячи двадцать шестого года.

Лазько Даниил Максимович

— памяти Михаила Юрьевича Лермонтова,
офицера, поэта и переводчика Бёрнса.