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

And yet the city's flower was there, 
Noblesse and models of the mode, 
Faces which we meet everywhere 
And necessary fools allowed.

Behold the dames who once were fine 

With roses, caps and looks malign; 
Some marriageable maids behold, 
Blank, unapproachable and cold.

Lo, the ambassador who speaks 

Economy political, 
And with gray hair ambrosial 
The old man who has had his freaks, 
Renowned for his acumen, wit, 
But now ridiculous a bit.

XXV

Behold Sabouroff, whom the age 
For baseness of the spirit scorns, 
Saint Priest, who every album's page 
With blunted pencil-point adorns.

Another tribune of the ball 

Hung like a print against the wall, 
Pink as Palm Sunday cherubim,[87] 
Motionless, mute, tight-laced and trim.

The traveller, bird of passage he, 

Stiff, overstarched and insolent, 
Awakens secret merriment 
By his embarrassed dignity—

Mute glances interchanged aside 

Meet punishment for him provide.

XXVI

But my Oneguine the whole eve 
Within his mind Tattiana bore, 
Not the young timid maid, believe, 
Enamoured, simple-minded, poor, 
But the indifferent princess, 
Divinity without access 
Of the imperial Neva's shore. 
O Men, how very like ye are 
To Eve the universal mother, 
Possession hath no power to please, 
The serpent to unlawful trees 
Aye bids ye in some way or other— 
Unless forbidden fruit we eat, 
Our paradise is no more sweet.

XXVII

Ah! how Tattiana was transformed, 
How thoroughly her part she took! 
How soon to habits she conformed 
Which crushing dignity must brook!

Who would the maiden innocent 

In the unmoved, magnificent 
Autocrat of the drawing-room seek? 
And he had made her heart beat quick!

'Twas he whom, amid nightly shades, 

Whilst Morpheus his approach delays, 
She mourned and to the moon would raise 
The languid eye of love-sick maids, 
Dreaming perchance in weal or woe 
To end with him her path below.

XXVIII

To Love all ages lowly bend, 
But the young unpolluted heart 
His gusts should fertilize, amend, 
As vernal storms the fields athwart.

Youth freshens beneath Passion's showers, 

Develops and matures its powers, 
And thus in season the rich field 
Gay flowers and luscious fruit doth yield.

But at a later, sterile age, 

The solstice of our earthly years, 
Mournful Love's deadly trace appears 
As storms which in chill autumn rage 
And leave a marsh the fertile ground 
And devastate the woods around.

XXIX