Eugene Oneguine [Onegin]. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse

Impelled by Spring's dissolving beams, 
The snows from off the hills around 
Descended swift in turbid streams 
And flooded all the level ground.

A smile from slumbering nature clear 

Did seem to greet the youthful year; 
The heavens shone in deeper blue, 
The woods, still naked to the view, 
Seemed in a haze of green embowered. 
The bee forth from his cell of wax 
Flew to collect his rural tax; 
The valleys dried and gaily flowered;

Herds low, and under night's dark veil 

Already sings the nightingale.

II

Mournful is thine approach to me, 
O Spring, thou chosen time of love! 
What agitation languidly 
My spirit and my blood doth move, 
What sad emotions o'er me steal 
When first upon my cheek I feel 
The breath of Spring again renewed, 
Secure in rural quietude—

Or, strange to me is happiness? 

Do all things which to mirth incline. 
And make a dark existence shine 
Inflict annoyance and distress 
Upon a soul inert and cloyed?— 
And is all light within destroyed?

III

Or, heedless of the leaves' return 
Which Autumn late to earth consigned, 
Do we alone our losses mourn 
Of which the rustling woods remind?

Or, when anew all Nature teems, 

Do we foresee in troubled dreams 
The coming of life's Autumn drear. 
For which no springtime shall appear?

Or, it may be, we inly seek, 

Wafted upon poetic wing, 
Some other long-departed Spring, 
Whose memories make the heart beat quick 
With thoughts of a far distant land, 
Of a strange night when the moon and—

IV

'Tis now the season! Idlers all, 
Epicurean philosophers, 
Ye men of fashion cynical, 
Of Levshin's school ye followers,[70]
Priams of country populations 
And dames of fine organisations, 
Spring summons you to her green bowers, 
'Tis the warm time of labour, flowers; 
The time for mystic strolls which late 
Into the starry night extend. 
Quick to the country let us wend 
In vehicles surcharged with freight; 
In coach or post-cart duly placed 
Beyond the city-barriers haste.

 

V

Thou also, reader generous, 
The chaise long ordered please employ, 
Abandon cities riotous, 
Which in the winter were a joy:

The Muse capricious let us coax, 

Go hear the rustling of the oaks 
Beside a nameless rivulet, 
Where in the country Eugene yet, 
An idle anchorite and sad, 
A while ago the winter spent, 
Near young Tattiana resident, 
My pretty self-deceiving maid— 
No more the village knows his face, 
For there he left a mournful trace.

VI