The Princess of the Tide
Overview
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s by Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...
, written shortly before his death in 1841. In it, the poet expounds upon his classic theme, best captured in his masterpiece "Mtsyri," about the horrors of the loss of freedom and the value of paying its cost:
- THE PRINCESS OF THE TIDE
- One day swimming his horse was a prince by the sea
- When he heard a voice cry: “Over here! Look at me!”
- The steed started and snorted, but ‘twas nothing to him
- He shook off a spray and continued to swim.
- Said the voice: “I am born to the King of the Tide”
- “Wilt thou one lordly night in my sweet arms abide?”
- And behold! From the wake, there a hand did emerge
- Reaching out for the bridle of silk on the surge.
- A young, pretty head did the brine then reveal
- With long braided hair draped in sea-grass of bright teal.
- Two dark blue eyes burned with passion’s pure fire
- Sea foam rolled on her cheeks like white pearls of desire.
- Thought the prince: “For this moment I surely was made .
Unanswered Questions
