Eugene Onegin. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse

With serious air then went away

As men who much had done that day.

Lo! my Oneguine rural lord!

Of mines and meadows, woods and lakes,

He now a full possession takes,

He who economy abhorred,

Delighted much his former ways

To vary for a few brief days.

XLVIII

For two whole days it seemed a change

To wander through the meadows still,

The cool dark oaken grove to range,

To listen to the rippling rill.

But on the third of grove and mead

He took no more the slightest heed;

They made him feel inclined to doze;

And the conviction soon arose,

Ennui can in the country dwell

Though without palaces and streets,

Cards, balls, routs, poetry or fetes;

On him spleen mounted sentinel

And like his shadow dogged his life,

Or better,—like a faithful wife.

XLIX

I was for calm existence made,

For rural solitude and dreams,

My lyre sings sweeter in the shade

And more imagination teems.

On innocent delights I dote,

Upon my lake I love to float,

For law I far niente take

And every morning I awake

The child of sloth and liberty.

I slumber much, a little read,

Of fleeting glory take no heed.

In former years thus did not I

In idleness and tranquil joy

The happiest days of life employ?

L

Love, flowers, the country, idleness

And fields my joys have ever been;

I like the difference to express

Between myself and my Eugene,

Lest the malicious reader or

Some one or other editor

Of keen sarcastic intellect

Herein my portrait should detect,

And impiously should declare,

To sketch myself that I have tried

Like Byron, bard of scorn and pride,

As if impossible it were

To write of any other elf

Than one's own fascinating self.

LI

Here I remark all poets are

Love to idealize inclined;

I have dreamed many a vision fair

And the recesses of my mind

Retained the image, though short-lived,

Which afterwards the muse revived.

Thus carelessly I once portrayed

Mine own ideal, the mountain maid,

The captives of the Salguir's shore.(22)

But now a question in this wise

Oft upon friendly lips doth rise:

Whom doth thy plaintive Muse adore?

To whom amongst the jealous throng

Of maids dost thou inscribe thy song?

[Note 22: Refers to two of the most interesting productions of

the poet. The former line indicates the Prisoner of the

Caucasus, the latter, The Fountain of Baktchiserai. The

Salguir is a river of the Crimea.]

LII

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.

LIII

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.

LIV

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.

END OF CANTO THE FIRST

CANTO THE SECOND

The Poet

"O Rus!"—Horace

Canto The Second

[Note: Odessa, December 1823.]

I

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.

II

'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.

III

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.

Oneguine oped the cupboards wide.