THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat

Paris. 147
She did, however, provide a glimpse into her personal experience of exile in a
group of poems near the beginning of Сияния: "Неотступное" and the short cycle,
"Южные стихи." These poems, unlike the angry, politically charged poetry written
immediately after her emigration, highlight the poet's emotional response to Russia's fall,
bringing together Gippius's spiritual path with that of Russia. In "Неотступное" the poet
ties herself to Russia's fate, pleading persistently for her native land's regeneration.
Trapped in the stagnant heat of her surroundings, she continues to linger in her despair in
the first poems of the southern cycle. In the cycle's final poem, "Дождь," she finds some
relief from her anguish, enabling a return to her journey of dynamic faith.
Gippius explicitly names Russia just once in Сияния, in the book's eighth poem,
"Неотступное," which immediately follows "Вечноженственное." 148
In this poem, the
poetic persona knocks tenaciously at the gates of Heaven, begging God to resurrect sinful
Russia:
………
Отдай мне ту, кого люблю,
Восстанови ее из праха!
Верни ее под отчий кров,
Пускай виновна—отпусти ей!
Твой очистительный покров
Простри над грешною Россией!
И мне упрямому рабу,
Увидеть дай ее, живую...
Открой!
Пока она в гробу,
От двери Отчей не уйду я.
147 In her biography of Merezhkovskii she wrote very little of their years in emigration: Мне особенно
трудно писать об этих годах жизни Дм. С-ча и нашей, потому что я как раз в это время никакой
последовательной записи не вела, кроме отрывочной, в первые месяцы после нашего приезда в
Париж. Gippius, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, 295. She did, however, briefly describe the feelings of loneliness
and helplessness associated with emigration in this same memoir. Ibid., 295-6.
148 Gippius names Petersburg in "Лазарь," one of the last poems of the book, which acts as an interesting
counterpart to "Неотступное."
111