Sunday Poetry - Feodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

Finally, a poet who lived to a ripe old age! Tyutchev lived to be 70 &, as far as I know, never fought a duel. He was from a gentry family, politically conservative & had a very complicated romantic history. This poem may be part of the Denisieva Cycle, a group of poems he wrote about his relationship with a woman, Elena Denisieva, over twenty years his junior. The affair lasted fourteen years & caused considerable scandal at the time.

Seated there upon the floor,
She picked through each familiar letter,
and like gray ash that glows no more
She took them up and let them scatter.

Then, taking up each page afresh,
So strangely did she look upon them
As souls freed from the cage of flesh
Might then look down on what had borne them...

How much of life they held enshrined,
events beyond recall amassed there!
So many moments brought to mind
Of love and grief, joy and disaster!

I stood in silence by the door,
Prepared to kneel in adoration;
Great sadness moved me to the core
Like some sweet spectral visitation.