Bemused and muddled, his own rook.
27
When he drives home, she still engages
His poet's soul, his artist's mind;
He fills her album's fleeting pages
With every tribute he can find:
He draws sweet views of rustic scenery,
A Venus temple, graves and greenery;
He pens a lyre . . . and then a dove,
Adds colour lightly and with love;
And on the leaves of recollection,
Beneath the lines from other hands,
He plants a tender verse that stands
Mute monument to fond reflection:
A moment's thought whose trace shall last
Unchanged when even years have passed.
28
I'm sure you've known provincial misses;
Their albums too you must have seen,
Where girlfriends scribble hopes and blisses
From frontside, backside, in between.
With spellings awesome in abusage,
Unmetred lines of hallowed usage
Are entered by each would-be friend
Diminished, lengthened, turned on end.
Upon the first page you'll discover:
Qu 'crirez-vous sur ces tablettes?
And 'neath it: toute vous Annette;
While on the last one you'll uncover:
'Who loves you more than I must sign
And fill the page that follows mine.'
29
You're sure to find there decorations:
Rosettes, a torch, a pair of hearts;
You'll read, no doubt, fond protestations:
With all my love, till death us parts;
Some army scribbler will have written
A roguish rhyme to tease the smitten.
In just such albums, friends, I too
Am quite as glad to write as you,
For there, at heart, I feel persuaded
That any zealous vulgar phrase
Will earn me an indulgent gaze,
And won't then be evaluated
With wicked grin or solemn eye
To judge the wit with which I lie.
30
But you, odd tomes of haughty ladies,
You gorgeous albums stamped with gilt,
You libraries of darkest Hades
And racks where modish rhymesters wilt,
You volumes nimbly ornamented
By Tolstoy's* magic brush, and scented
By Baratynsky's penI vow:
Let God's own lightning strike you now!
Whenever dazzling ladies proffer
Their quartos to be signed by me,
I tremble with malicious glee;
My soul cries out and longs to offer
An epigram of cunning spite
But madrigals they'll have you write!
31
No madrigals of mere convention
Does Olga's Lensky thus compose;
His pen breathes love, not pure invention
Or sparkling wit as cold as prose;
Whatever comes to his attention
Concerning Olga, that he'll mention;
And filled with truth's own vivid glows
A stream of elegies then flows.
* Thus you, Yazykov,* with perfection,
With all the surgings of your heart,
Sing God knows whom in splendid art
Sweet elegies, whose full collection
Will on some future day relate
The uncut story of your fate.
32
But hush! A strident critic rises
Of elegy in all its guises
And to our rhyming guild calls down:
'Have done with all your lamentations,
Your endless croakings and gyrations
On "former days" and "times of yore";
Enough now! Sing of something more!'
You're right. And will you point with praises
To trumpet, mask, and dagger* too,
And bid us thuswise to renew
Our stock of dead ideas and phrases?
Is that it, friend?'Far from it. Nay!
Write odes,* good sirs, write odes, I say . . .
33
'The way they did in former ages,
Those mighty years still rich in fame. . .
.' Just solemn odes? .. . On all our pages?!
Oh come now, friend, it's all the same.
Recall the satirist, good brother,
And his sly odist in The Other*
Do you find him more pleasing, pray,
Than our glum rhymesters of today?.. . .
'Your elegy lacks all perception,
Its want of purpose is a crime;
Whereas the ode has aims sublime.
' One might to this take sharp exception,
But I'll be mute. I don't propose
To bring two centuries to blows.
34
By thoughts of fame and freedom smitten,
Vladimir's stormy soul grew wings;
What odes indeed he might have written,
But Olga didn't read the things.
How oft have tearful poets chances
To read their works before the glances
Of those they love? Good sense declares
That no reward on earth compares.
How blest, shy lover, to be granted
To read to her for whom you long:
The very object of your song,
A beauty languid and enchanted!
Ah, blest indeed . . . although it's true,
She may be dreaming not of you.
35
But I my fancy's fruits and flowers
(Those dreams and harmonies I tend)
Am quite content to read for hours
To my old nurse, my childhood's friend;
Or sometimes after dinners dreary,
When some good neighbour drops in weary
I'll corner him and catch his coat
And stuff him with the play I wrote;
Or else (and here I'm far from jesting),
When off beside my lake I climb
Beset with yearning and with rhyme
I scare a flock of ducks from resting;
And hearing my sweet stanzas soar,
They flap their wings and fly from shore.
36*
And as I watch them disappearing,
A hunter hidden in the brush
Damns poetry for interfering
And, whistling, fires with a rush.
Each has his own preoccupation,
His favourite sport or avocation:
One aims a gun at ducks on high;
One is entranced by rhyme as I;
One swats at flies in mindless folly;
One dreams of ruling multitudes;
One craves the scent that war exudes;
One likes to bask in melancholy;
One occupies himself with wine:
And good and bad all intertwine.
37
But what of our Eugene this while?
Have patience, friends, I beg you, pray;
I'll tell it all in detailed style
And show you how he spent each day.
Onegin lived in his own heaven:
In summer he'd get up by seven
And, lightly clad, would take a stroll
Down to the stream below the knoll.
Gulnare's proud singer* his example,
He'd swim across this Hellespont;
Then afterwards, as was his wont,
He'd drink his coffee, sometimes sample
The pages of some dull review,
And then he'd dress. . . .
(38) 39
Long rambles, reading, slumber's blisses,
The burbling brook, the wooded shade,
At times the fresh and youthful kisses
Of white-skinned, dark-eyed country maid;
A horse of spirit fit to bridle,
A dinner fanciful and idle,
A bottle of some sparkling wine,
Seclusion, quietthese, in fine,
Were my Onegin's saintly pleasures,
To which he yielded one by one,
Unmoved to count beneath the sun
Fair summer's days and careless treasures,
Unmindful too of town or friends
And their dull means to festive ends.
40
Our northern summers, though, are versions
Of southern winters, this is clear;
And though we're loath to cast aspersions,
They seem to go before they're here!
The sky breathed autumn, turned and darkled;
The friendly sun less often sparkled;
The days grew short and as they sped,
The wood with mournful murmur shed
Its wondrous veil to stand uncovered;
The fields all lay in misty peace;
The caravan of cackling geese
Turned south; and all around there hovered
The sombre season near at hand;
November marched across the land.
41
The dawn arises cold and cheerless;
The empty fields in silence wait;
And on the road . . . grown lean and fearless,
The wolf appears with hungry mate;
Catching the scent, the road horse quivers
And snorts in fear, the traveller shivers
And flies uphill with all his speed;
No more at dawn does shepherd need
To drive the cows outside with ringing;
Nor does his horn at midday sound
The call that brings them gathering round.
Inside her hut a girl is singing,
And by the matchwood's crackling light
She spins away the wintry night.
42
The frost already cracks and crunches;
The fields are silver where they froze . ..
(And you, good reader, with your hunches,
Expect the rhyme, so take itRose!)
No fine parquet could hope to muster
The ice-clad river's glassy lustre;
The joyous tribe of boys berates
And cuts the ice with ringing skates;
A waddling red-foot goose now scurries
To swim upon the water's breast;
He treads the ice with care to test. . .
And down he goes! The first snow flurries
Come flitting, flicking, swirling round
To fall like stars upon the ground.
43
But how is one, in this dull season,
To help the rural day go by?
Take walks? The views give little reason,
When only bareness greets the eye.
Go ride the steppe's harsh open spaces?
Your mount, if put to try his paces
On treacherous ice in blunted shoe,
Is sure to fall. . . and so will you.
So stay beneath your roof... try reading:
Here's Pradt* or, better, Walter Scott!
Or check accounts. You'd rather not?
Then rage or drink. . . . Somehow proceeding,
This night will pass (the next one too),
And grandly you'll see winter through!
44
Childe Harold-like, Onegin ponders,
Adrift in idle, slothful ways;
From bed to icy bath he wanders,
And then at home all day he stays,
Alone, and sunk in calculation,
His only form of recreation
The game of billiards, all day through,
With just two balls and blunted cue.
But as the rural dusk encroaches,
The cue's forgot, the billiards fade;
Before the hearth the table's laid.
He waits.... At last his guest approaches:
It's Lensky's troika, three fine roans;
'Come on, let's dine, my stomach groans!'
45
Mot, that wine most blest and heady,
Or Veuve Cliquot, the finest class,
Is brought in bottle chilled and ready
And set beside the poet's glass.
Like Hippocrene* it sparkles brightly,
It fizzes, foams, and bubbles lightly
(A simile in many ways);
It charmed me too, in other days:
For its sake once, I squandered gladly
My last poor pence . . . remember, friend?
Its magic stream brought forth no end
Of acting foolish, raving madly,
And, oh, how many jests and rhymes,
And arguments, and happy times!
46
But all that foamy, frothy wheezing
Just plays my stomach false,
I fear; And nowadays I find more pleasing
Sedate Bordeaux's good quiet cheer.
Ai* I find is much too risky,
A is like a mistressfrisky,
Vivacious, brilliant. . . and too light.
But you, Bordeaux, I find just right;
You're like a comrade, ever steady,
Prepared in trials or in grief
To render service, give relief;
And when we wish it, always ready
To share a quiet evening's end.
Long live Bordeaux, our noble friend!
47
The fire goes out; the coal, still gleaming,
Takes on a film of ash and pales;
The rising vapours, faintly streaming,
Curl out of sight; the hearth exhales
A breath of warmth. The pipe smoke passes
Up chimney flue. The sparkling glasses
Stand fizzing on the table yet;
With evening's gloom, the day has set. . .
(I'm fond of friendly conversation
And of a friendly glass or two
At dusk or entre chien et loup*
As people say without translation,
Though why they do, I hardly know).
But listen as our friends speak low:
48
'And how are our dear neighbours faring?
Tatyana and your Olga, pray? . . .
' 'Just half a glass, old boy, be sparing. . .
The family's well, I think I'd say;
They send you greetings and affection. . . .
Oh, God, my friend, what sheer perfection