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      Whose glance reflecting inspiration

      With tenderness hath recognized

      Thy meditative incantation —

      Whom hath thy strain immortalized?

      None, be my witness Heaven above!

      The malady of hopeless love

      I have endured without respite.

      Happy who thereto can unite

      Poetic transport. They impart

      A double force unto their song

      Who following Petrarch move along

      And ease the tortures of the heart —

      Perchance they laurels also cull —

      But I, in love, was mute and dull.

      The Muse appeared, when love passed by

      And my dark soul to light was brought;

      Free, I renewed the idolatry

      Of harmony enshrining thought.

      I write, and anguish flies away,

      Nor doth my absent pen portray

      Around my stanzas incomplete

      Young ladies’ faces and their feet.

      Extinguished ashes do not blaze —

      I mourn, but tears I cannot shed —

      Soon, of the tempest which hath fled

      Time will the ravages efface —

      When that time comes, a poem I’ll strive

      To write in cantos twenty-five.

      I’ve thought well o’er the general plan,

      The hero’s name too in advance,

      Meantime I’ll finish whilst I can

      Canto the First of this romance.

      I’ve scanned it with a jealous eye,

      Discovered much absurdity,

      But will not modify a tittle —

      I owe the censorship a little.

      For journalistic deglutition

      I yield the fruit of work severe.

      Go, on the Neva’s bank appear,

      My very latest composition!

      Enjoy the meed which Fame bestows —

      Misunderstanding, words and blows.

      The village wherein yawned Eugene

      Was a delightful little spot,

      There friends of pure delight had been

      Grateful to Heaven for their lot.

      The lonely mansion-house to screen

      From gales a hill behind was seen;

      Before it ran a stream. Behold!

      Afar, where clothed in green and gold

      Meadows and cornfields are displayed,

      Villages in the distance show

      And herds of oxen wandering low;

      Whilst nearer, sunk in deeper shade,

      A thick immense neglected grove

      Extended – haunt which Dryads love.

      ‘Twas built, the venerable pile,

      As lordly mansions ought to be,

      In solid, unpretentious style,

      The style of wise antiquity.

      Lofty the chambers one and all,

      Silk tapestry upon the wall,

      Imperial portraits hang around

      And stoves of various shapes abound.

      All this I know is out of date,

      I cannot tell the reason why,

      But Eugene, incontestably,

      The matter did not agitate,

      Because he yawned at the bare view

      Of drawing-rooms or old or new.

      He took the room wherein the old

      Man – forty years long in this wise —

      His housekeeper was wont to scold,

      Look through the window and kill flies.

      ‘Twas plain – an oaken floor ye scan,

      Two cupboards, table, soft divan,

      And not a speck of dirt descried.

      Onegin oped the cupboards wide.

      In one he doth accounts behold,

      Here bottles stand in close array,

      There jars of cider block the way,

      An almanac but eight years old.

      His uncle, busy man indeed,

      No other book had time to read.

      Alone amid possessions great,

      Eugene at first began to dream,

      If but to lighten Time’s dull rate,

      Of many an economic scheme;

      This anchorite amid his waste

      The ancient barshtchina replaced

      By an obrok’s[21] indulgent rate:

      The peasant blessed his happy fate.

      But this a heinous crime appeared

      Unto his neighbour, man of thrift,

      Who secretly denounced the gift,

      And many another slily sneered;

      And all with one accord agreed,

      He was a dangerous fool indeed.

      All visited him at first, of course;

      But since to the backdoor they led

      Most usually a Cossack horse

      Upon the Don’s broad pastures bred

      If they but heard domestic loads

      Come rumbling up the neighbouring roads,

      Most by this circumstance offended

      All overtures of friendship ended.

      “Oh! what a fool our neighbour is!

      He’s a freemason, so we think.

      Alone he doth his claret drink,

      A

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