LITMIR.BIZ

      Tattiana was her appellation.

      We are the first who such a name

      In pages of a love narration

      With such a perversity proclaim.

      But wherefore not? – ‘Tis pleasant, nice,

      Euphonious, though I know a spice

      It carries of antiquity

      And of the attic. Honestly,

      We must admit but little taste

      Doth in us or our names appear

      (I speak not of our poems here),

      And education runs to waste,

      Endowing us from out her store

      With affectation, – nothing more.

      And so Tattiana was her name,

      Nor by her sister’s brilliancy

      Nor by her beauty she became

      The cynosure of every eye.

      Shy, silent did the maid appear

      As in the timid forest deer,

      Even beneath her parents’ roof

      Stood as estranged from all aloof,

      Nearest and dearest knew not how

      To fawn upon and love express;

      A child devoid of childishness

      To romp and play she ne’er would go:

      Oft staring through the window pane

      Would she in silence long remain.

      Contemplativeness, her delight,

      E’en from her cradle’s earliest dream,

      Adorned with many a vision bright

      Of rural life the sluggish stream;

      Ne’er touched her fingers indolent

      The needle nor, o’er framework bent,

      Would she the canvas tight enrich

      With gay design and silken stitch.

      Desire to rule ye may observe

      When the obedient doll in sport

      An infant maiden doth exhort

      Polite demeanour to preserve,

      Gravely repeating to another

      Recent instructions of its mother.

      But Tania ne’er displayed a passion

      For dolls, e’en from her earliest years,

      And gossip of the town and fashion

      She ne’er repeated unto hers.

      Strange unto her each childish game,

      But when the winter season came

      And dark and drear the evenings were,

      Terrible tales she loved to hear.

      And when for Olga nurse arrayed

      In the broad meadow a gay rout,

      All the young people round about,

      At prisoner’s base she never played.

      Their noisy laugh her soul annoyed,

      Their giddy sports she ne’er enjoyed.

      She loved upon the balcony

      To anticipate the break of day,

      When on the pallid eastern sky

      The starry beacons fade away,

      The horizon luminous doth grow,

      Morning’s forerunners, breezes blow

      And gradually day unfolds.

      In winter, when Night longer holds

      A hemisphere beneath her sway,

      Longer the East inert reclines

      Beneath the moon which dimly shines,

      And calmly sleeps the hours away,

      At the same hour she oped her eyes

      And would by candlelight arise.

      Romances pleased her from the first,

      Her all in all did constitute;

      In love adventures she was versed,

      Rousseau and Richardson to boot.

      Not a bad fellow was her father

      Though superannuated rather;

      In books he saw nought to condemn

      But, as he never opened them,

      Viewed them with not a little scorn,

      And gave himself but little pain

      His daughter’s book to ascertain

      Which ’neath her pillow lay till morn.

      His wife was also mad upon

      The works of Mr. Richardson.

      She was thus fond of Richardson

      Not that she had his works perused,

      Or that adoring Grandison

      That rascal Lovelace she abused;

      But that Princess Pauline of old,

      Her Moscow cousin, often told

      The tale of these romantic men;

      Her husband was a bridegroom then,

      And she despite herself would waste

      Sighs on another than her lord

      Whose qualities appeared to afford

      More satisfaction to her taste.

      Her Grandison was in the Guard,

      A noted fop who gambled hard.

      Like his, her dress was always nice,

      The height of fashion, fitting tight,

      But contrary to her advice

      The girl in marriage they unite.

      Then, her distraction to allay,

      The bridegroom sage without delay

      Removed her to his country seat,

      Where God alone knows whom she met.

      She struggled hard at first thus pent,

      Night separated from

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