Eugene can only stare,
He has no voice. Without a smile,
And ill at ease, he scarcely tries
To answer her. His mind supplies
But one persistent thought the while.
His eyes retain their stare; but she
Sits unconstrained, quite calm and free.
23
Her husband enters, thus arresting
This most unpleasant tête-à-tête;
Eugene and he recalled the jesting,
The pranks and fun when first they’d met.
They laughed. Then guests began arriving.
And on the spice of malice thriving,
The conversation sparkled bright;
The hostess kept the banter light
And quite devoid of affectations;
Good reasoned talk was also heard,
But not a trite or vulgar word,
No lasting truths or dissertations—
And no one’s ears were shocked a bit
By all the flow of lively wit.
24
The social cream had gathered gaily:
The nobly born and fashion’s pets;
The faces one encounters daily,
The fools one never once forgets;
The aged ladies, decked in roses,
In bonnets and malignant poses;
And several maidens, far from gay—
Unsmiling faces on display;
And here’s an envoy speaking slyly
Of some most solemn state affair;
A greybeard too … with scented hair,
Who joked both cleverly and wryly
In quite a keen, old-fashioned way,
Which seems a touch absurd today!
25
And here’s a chap whose words are biting,
Who’s cross with everything about:
With tea too sweet to be inviting,
With banal ladies, men who shout,
That foggy book they’re all debating,
The badge on those two maids-in-waiting,*
The falsehoods in reviews, the war,
The snow, his wife, and much, much more.
26
And here’s Prolázov,* celebrated
For loathesomeness of soul—a clown,
As you, Saint-Priest,* have demonstrated
In album drawings all through town.
Another ballroom king on station
(Like fashion’s very illustration)
Beside the door stood tightly laced,
Immobile, mute, and cherub-faced;
A traveller home from distant faring,
A brazen chap all starched and proud,
Provoked amusement in the crowd
By his pretentious, studied bearing:
A mere exchange of looks conveyed
The sorry sight the fellow made.
27
But my Eugene all evening heeded
Tatyana … only her alone:
But not the timid maid who’d pleaded,
That poor enamoured girl he’d known—
But this cool princess so resplendent,
This distant goddess so transcendent,
Who ruled the queenly Néva’s shore.
Alas! We humans all ignore
Our Mother Eve’s disastrous history:
What’s given to us ever palls,
Incessantly the serpent calls
And lures us to the tree of mystery:
We’ve got to have forbidden fruit,
Or Eden’s joys for us are moot.
28
How changed Tatyana is! How surely
She’s taken up the role she plays!
How quick she’s mastered, how securely,
Her lordly rank’s commanding ways!
Who’d dare to seek the tender maiden
In this serene and glory-laden
Grande Dame of lofty social spheres?
Yet once he’d moved her heart to tears!
Her virgin brooding once had cherished
Sweet thoughts of him in darkest night,
While Morpheus still roamed in flight;
And, gazing at the moon, she’d nourished
A tender dream that she someday
Might walk with him life’s humble way!
29
To love all ages yield surrender;
But to the young its raptures bring
A blessing bountiful and tender—
As storms refresh the fields of spring.
Neath passion’s rains they green and thicken,
Renew themselves with joy, and quicken;
And vibrant life in taking root
Sends forth rich blooms and gives sweet fruit.
But when the years have made us older,
And barren age has shown its face,
How sad is faded passion’s trace! …
Thus storms in autumn, blowing colder,
Turn meadows into marshy ground
And strip the forest bare all round.
30
Alas! it’s true: Eugene’s demented,
In love with Tanya like a boy;
He spends each day and night tormented
By thoughts of love, by dreams of joy.
Ignoring reason’s condemnation,
Each day he rides to take his station
Outside her glassed-in entryway,
Then follows her about all day.
He’s happy just to be around her,
To help her with her shawl or furs,
To touch a torrid hand to hers,
To part the footmen who surround her
In liveried ranks where’er she calls,
Or fetch her kerchief when it falls.
31
She pays him not the least attention,
No matter what he tries to do;
At home receives him without tension;
In public speaks a word or two,
Or sometimes merely bows on meeting,
Or passes by without a greeting:
She’s no coquette in any part—
The monde abhors a fickle heart.
Onegin, though, is fading quickly;
She doesn’t see or doesn’t care;
Onegin, wasting, has the air
Of one consumptive—wan and sickly.
He’s urged to seek his doctors’ view,
And these suggest a spa or two.
32
But he refused to go. He’s ready
To join his forebears any day;
Tatyana, though, stayed calm and steady
(Their sex, alas, is hard to sway).
And yet he’s stubborn … still resistant,
Still hopeful and indeed persistent.
Much bolder than most healthy men,
He chose with trembling hand to pen
The princess an impassioned letter.
Though on the whole he saw no sense
In missives writ in love’s defence
(And with good cause!), he found it better
Than bearing all his pain unheard.
So here’s his letter word for word.
Onegin’s Letter to Tatyana
I know you’ll feel a deep distress
At this unwanted revelation.
What bitter scorn and condemnation
Your haughty glance may well express!
What aims … what hopes do I envision
In opening my soul to you?
What wicked and deserved derision
Perhaps I give occasion to!
When first I met you and detected
A warmth in you quite unexpected,
I dared not trust in love again:
I didn’t yield to sweet temptation
And had, it’s true, no inclination
To lose my hateful freedom then.
What’s more: poor guiltless Lensky perished,
And his sad fate drew us apart…
From all that I had ever cherished
I tore away my grieving heart;
Estranged from men and discontented,
I thought: in freedom, peace of mind,
A substitute for joy I’d find.
How wrong I’ve been! And how tormented!
But no! Each moment of my days
To see you and pursue you madly!
To catch your smile and search your gaze
With loving eyes that seek you gladly;
To melt with pain before your face,
To hear your voice … to try to capture
With all my soul your perfect grace;
To swoon and pass away … what rapture!
And I’m deprived of this; for you
I search on all the paths I wander;
Each day is dear, each moment too!
Yet I in futile dullness squander
These days allotted me by fate …
Oppressive days indeed of late.
My span on earth is all but taken,
But lest too soon I join the dead,
I need to know when I awaken,
I’ll see you in the day ahead….
I fear that in this meek petition
Your solemn gaze may only spy
The cunning of a base ambition—
And I can hear your stern reply.
But if you knew the anguish in it:
To thirst with love in every part,
To burn—and with the mind each minute,
To calm the tumult in one‘s heart;
To long to clasp in adoration
Your knees … and, sobbing at your feet,
Pour out confessions, lamentation,
Oh, all that I might then entreat! …
And meantime, feigning resignation,
To arm my gaze and speech with lies:
to look at you with cheerful eyes
And hold a placid conversation!…
But let it be: it’s now too late
For me to struggle at this hour;
The die is cast: I’m in your power,
And I surrender to my fate.
33
No answer came. Eugene elected
to write again … and then once more—
With no reply. He drives, dejected,
To some soirée … and by the door,
Sees her at once! Her harshness stuns him!
Without a word the lady shuns him!
My god! How stern that haughty brow,
What wintry frost surrounds her now!
Her lips express determination
To keep her fury in control!
Onegin stares with all his soul:
But where’s distress? Commiseration?
And where the tearstains? … Not a trace!
There’s wrath alone upon that face …
34
And, maybe, secret apprehension
Lest monde or husband misconstrue
An episode too slight to mention,
The tale that my Onegin knew ….
But he departs, his hopes in tatters,
And damns his folly in these matters—
And plunging into deep despond,
He once again rejects the monde.
And he recalled with grim emotion,
Behind his silent study door,
How wicked spleen had once before
Pursued him through the world’s commotion,
Had seized him by the collar then,
And locked him in a darkened den.
35
Once more he turned to books and sages.
He read his Gibbon and Rousseau;
Chamfort, Manzoni, Herder’s pages;
Madame de Staël, Bichat, Tissot.
The sceptic Bayle he quite devoured,
The works of Fontenelle he scoured;*
He even read some Russians too,
Nor did he scorn the odd review—
Those journals where each modern Moses
Instructs us in a moral way—
Where I’m so much abused today,
But where such madrigals and roses
I used to meet with now and then:
E sempre bene, gentlemen.
36
And yet—although his eyes were reading,
His thoughts had wandered far apart;
Desires, dreams, and sorrows pleading—
Had crowded deep within his heart.
Between the printed lines lay hidden
Quite other lines that rose unbidden
Before his gaze. And these alone
Absorbed his soul … as he was shown:
The heart’s dark secrets and traditions,
The mysteries of its ancient past;
Disjointed dreams—obscure and vast;
Vague threats and rumours, premonitions;
A drawn-out tale of fancies grand,
And letters in a maiden’s hand.
37
But then as torpor dulled sensation,
His feelings and his thoughts went slack,
While in his mind Imagination
Dealt out her motley faro pack.
He sees a youth, quite still, reposing
On melting snow—as if he’s dozing
On bivouac; then hears with dread
A voice proclaim: ‘Well then, he’s dead!’
He sees forgotten foes he’d bested,
Base cowards, slanderers full-blown,
Unfaithful women he had known,
Companions whom he now detested …
A country house … a windowsill…
Where she sits waiting… waiting still!
38
He got so lost in his depression,
He just about went mad, I fear,
Or else turned poet (an obsession
That I’d have been the first to cheer!)
It’s true: by self-hypnotic action,
My muddled pupil, in distraction,
Came close to grasping at that time
The principles of Russian rhyme.
He looked the poet so completely
When by the hearth he’d sit alone
And Benedetto* he’d intone
Or sometimes Idol mio* sweetly—
While on the flames he’d drop unseen
His slipper or his magazine!
39
The days flew by. The winter season
Dissolved amid the balmy air;
He didn’t die, or lose his reason,
Or turn a poet in despair.
With spring he felt rejuvenated:
The cell in which he’d hibernated
So marmot-like through winter’s night—
The hearth, the double panes shut tight—
He quit one sparkling morn and sprinted
Along the Neva’s bank by sleigh.
On hacked-out bluish ice that lay
Beside the road the sunlight glinted.
The rutted snow had turned to slush;
But where in such a headlong rush
40
Has my Eugene directly hastened?
You’ve guessed already. Yes, indeed:
The moody fellow, still unchastened,
Has flown to Tanya’s in his need.
He enters like a dead man, striding
Through empty hall; then passes, gliding,
Through grand salon. And on! … All bare.
He opens up a door…. What’s there
That strikes him with such awful pleading?
The princess sits alone in sight,
Quite unadorned, her face gone white
Above some letter that she’s reading—
And cheek in hand as down she peers,
She softly sheds a flood of tears.
41
In that brief instant then, who couldn’t
Have read her tortured heart at last!
And in the princess then, who wouldn’t
Have known poor Tanya from the past!
Mad with regret and anguished feeling,
Eugene fell down before her, kneeling;
She shuddered, but she didn’t speak,
Just looked at him—her visage bleak—
Without surprise or indignation.
His stricken, sick, extinguished eyes,
Imploring aspect, mute replies—
She saw it all. In desolation,
The simple girl he’d known before,
Who’d dreamt and loved, was born once more.
42
Her gaze upon his face still lingers;
She does not bid him rise or go,
Does not withdraw impassive fingers
From avid lips that press them so.
What dreams of hers were re-enacted?
The heavy silence grew protracted,
Until at last she whispered low:
‘Enough; get up. To you I owe
A word of candid explanation.
Onegin, do you still retain
Some memory of that park and lane,
Where fate once willed our confrontation,
And I so meekly heard you preach?
It’s my turn now to make a speech.
43
‘Onegin, I was then much younger,
I daresay better-looking too,
And loved you with a girlish hunger;
But what did I then find in you?
What answer came? Just stern rejection.
A little maiden’s meek affection
To you, I’m sure, was trite and old.
Oh God!—my blood can still turn cold
When I recall how you reacted:
Your frigid glance … that sermonette! …
But I can’t blame you or forget
How nobly in a sense you acted,
How right toward me that awful day:
I’m grateful now in every way….
44
‘Back then—far off from vain commotion,
In our backwoods, as you’ll allow,
You had no use for my devotion …
So why do you pursue me now?
Why mark me out for your attention?
Is it perhaps my new ascension
To circles that you find more swank;
Or that I now have wealth and rank;
Or that my husband, maimed in battle,
Is held in high esteem at Court?
Or would my fall perhaps be sport,
A cause for all the monde to tattle—
Which might in turn bring you some claim
To social scandal’s kind of fame?
45
'I'm weeping…. Oh, at this late hour,
If you recall your Tanya still,
Then know—that were it in my power,
I’d much prefer words harsh and chill,
Stern censure in your former fashion—
To this offensive show of passion,
To all these letters and these tears.
Oh then at least, my tender years
Aroused in you some hint of kindness;
You pitied then my girlish dreams….
But now! … What unbecoming schemes
Have brought you to my feet? What blindness!
Can you, so strong of mind and heart,
Now stoop to play so base a part?
46
’To me, Onegin, all these splendours,
This weary tinselled life of mine,
This homage that the great world tenders,
My stylish house where princes dine—
Are empty. … I’d as soon be trading
This tattered life of masquerading,
This world of glitter, fumes, and noise,
For just my books, the simple joys
Of our old home, its walks and flowers,
For all those haunts that I once knew …
Where first, Onegin, I saw you;
For that small churchyard’s shaded bowers,
Where over my poor nanny now
there stands a cross beneath a bough.
47
‘And happiness was ours … so nearly!
It came so close! … But now my fate
Has been decreed. I may have merely
Been foolish when I failed to wait;
But mother with her lamentation
Implored me, and in resignation
(All futures seemed alike in woe)
I married…. Now I beg you, go!
I’ve faith in you and do not tremble;
I know that in your heart reside
Both honour and a manly pride.
I love you (why should I dissemble?);
But I am now another’s wife,
And I’ll be faithful all my life.’
48
She left him then. Eugene, forsaken,
Stood seared, as if by heaven’s fire.
How deep his stricken heart is shaken!
With what a tempest of desire!
A sudden clink of spurs rings loudly,
As Tanya’s husband enters proudly—
And here … at this unhappy turn
For my poor hero, we’ll adjourn
And leave him, reader, at his station …
For long … forever. In his train
We’ve roamed the world down one slim lane
For long enough. Congratulation
On reaching land at last. Hurray!
And long since time, I’m sure you’d say!
49
Whatever, reader, your reaction,
and whether you be foe or friend,
I hope we part in satisfaction …
As comrades now. Whatever end
You may have sought in these reflections—
Tumultuous, fond recollections,
Relief from labours for a time,
Live images, or wit in rhyme,
Or maybe merely faulty grammar—
God grant that in my careless art,
For fun, for dreaming, for the heart…
For raising journalistic clamour,
You’ve found at least a crumb or two.
And so let’s part; farewell … adieu!
50
Farewell, you too, my moody neighbour,
And you, my true ideal, my own!
And you, small book, my constant labour,
In whose bright company I’ve known
All that a poet’s soul might cherish:
Oblivion when tempests flourish,
Sweet talk with friends, on which I’ve fed.
Oh, many, many days have fled
Since young Tatyana with her lover,
As in a misty dream at night,
First floated dimly into sight—
And I as yet could not uncover
Or through the magic crystal see
My novel’s shape or what would be.
51
But those to whom, as friends and brothers,
My first few stanzas I once read—
‘Some are no more, and distant… others.’*
As Sadi* long before us said.
Without them my Onegin’s fashioned.
And she from whom I drew, impassioned,
My fair Tatyana’s noblest trait…
Oh, much, too much you’ve stolen, Fate!
But blest is he who rightly gauges
The time to quit the feast and fly,
Who never drained life’s chalice dry,
Nor read its novel’s final pages;
But all at once for good withdrew—
As I from my Onegin do.
APPENDIX
EXCERPTS FROM ONEGIN’S JOURNEY
PUSHKIN’S FOREWORD
The last (eighth) chapter of Eugene Onegin was published separately with the following foreword:
The omission of certain stanzas has given rise on more than one occasion to criticism and jesting (no doubt most just and witty). The author candidly confesses that he has removed from his novel an entire chapter, in which Onegin’s journey across Russia was described. It behoved him to indicate this omitted chapter by dots or a numeral, but to avoid ambiguity he thought it preferable to label as number eight, instead of nine, the final chapter of Eugene Onegin, and to sacrifice one of its closing stanzas:
It’s time: my pen demands a pillow;
Nine cantos have I duly wrought,
And now the ninth and final billow
To joyful shore my bark has brought.
All praise to you, O nine Camenae,* etc.
P. A. Katenin* (whose fine poetic talent in no way prevents him from being a subtle critic as well) has observed to us that this excision, though advantageous perhaps for the reader, is none the less harmful to the work as a whole, for it makes the transition from Tatyana the provincial miss to Tatyana the exalted lady too sudden and unexplained: an observation that reveals the accomplished artist. The author himself felt the justness of this reproach but decided to omit the chapter for reasons important to him, but not to the public. Some few excerpts have been published already; we insert them here, along with several other stanzas.
ONEGIN TRAVELS FROM MOSCOW TO NIZHNI NOVGOROD
* * *
. . . . . .
before his eyes
Makáriev Market* stirs and bustles,
A-seethe with plenty’s wares and cries.
The Hindu’s here—his pearls to proffer,
All Europe—specious wines to offer;
The breeder from the steppe as well
Has brought defective steeds to sell;
The gambler’s here with dice all loaded,
With decks of cards of every type,
The landed gent—with daughters ripe,
Bedraped in dresses long outmoded;
All bustle round and lie like cheats,
And commerce reigns in all the streets
* * *
Ennui! …
ONEGIN DRIVES TO ASTRAKHAN, AND FROM THERE TO THE CAUCASUS
* * *
He sees the wilful Terek* roaring
Outside its banks in wayward flow;
He spies a stately eagle soaring,
A standing deer with horns held low,
By shaded cliff a camel lying,
Circassian steed on meadow flying;
All round the nomad-tented land
The sheep of Kalmuk herdsmen stand,
And far ahead—Caucasian masses.
The way lies open; war has passed
Beyond this great divide at last,
Across these once imperilled passes.
The Kúra’s and Arágva’s banks*
Have seen the Russians’ tented ranks.
* * *
And now his gazing eye discovers
Beshtú,* the watchman of the waste;
Sharp-peaked and ringed by hills, it hovers…
And there’s Mashúk,* all green-encased,
Mashúk, the source of healing waters;
Amid its magic brooks and quarters
In pallid swarms the patients press,
All victims: some—of war’s distress,
And some of Venus, some of Piles.
Within those waves each martyred soul
Would mend life’s thread and make it whole;
Coquettes would leave their ageing smiles
Beneath the waves, while older men
For just one day seek youth again.
* * *
Consumed by bitter meditation,
Onegin, mid those mournful crowds,
With gaze of keen commiseration
Regards those streams and smoky clouds,
And with a wistful sigh he muses:
Oh, why have I no bullet’s bruises?
Or why am I not old and spare,
Like that poor tax collector there?
Or why not crippled with arthritis,
The fate that Tula clerk was dealt?
And why—O Lord—have I not felt
A twinge at least of some bursitis?
I’m young and still robust, you see;
So what’s ahead? Ennui, ennui! …
ONEGIN THEN VISITS TAURIS [THE CRIMEA]
A land by which the mind is fired:
Orestes with his friend here vied,*
And here great Mithridates* died,
And here Mickiéwicz* sang inspired,
And, by these coastal cliffs enthralled,
His distant homeland he recalled.
* * *
O lovely land, you shores of Tauris,
From shipboard looming into sight,
As first I saw you rise before us,
Like Cypris* bathed in morning’s light.
You came to me in nuptial splendour;
Against a sky all blue and tender
The masses of your mountains gleamed;
Your valleys, woods, and hamlets seemed
A patterned vision spread before me.
And there where Tartar tongues are spoke
What passions in my soul awoke!
What mad and magic yearnings tore me
And held my flaming bosom fast!
But now, O Muse, forget the past!
* * *
Whatever feelings then lay hidden—
Within me now they are no more:
They’ve passed away or changed unbidden …
So peace to you, you woes of yore!
Back then it seemed that I required
Those desert wastes and waves inspired,
Those massive cliffs and pounding sea,
The vision too of ‘maiden free,’
And nameless pangs and sweet perdition …
But other days bring other dreams;
You’re now subdued, you vaulting schemes
Of youthful springtime’s vast ambition,
And in this poet’s cup of mine
I now mix water with my wine.
* * *
Of other scenes have I grown fonder:
I like a sandy slope of late,
A cottage with two rowans yonder,
A broken fence, a wicket gate,
Grey clouds against a sky that lowers,
Great heaps of straw from threshing mowers,
And ’neath the spreading willow tree—
A pond for ducks to wallow free.
The balalaika’s now my pleasure,
And by the country tavern door
The peasant dance’s drunken roar.
A housewife now is what I treasure;
I long for peace, for simple fare:
Just cabbage soup and room to spare.
* * *
The other day, in rainy weather,
As I approached the farm … Enough!
What prosy ravings strung together,
The Flemish painter’s motley stuff!
Was I like that when I was tender,
Bakhchisarài,* you fount of splendour!
Were these the thoughts that crossed my mind
When, ’neath your endless chant I pined
And then in silence meditated
And pondered my Zaréma’s* fate? …
Within those empty halls ornate,
Upon my trail, three years belated,
While travelling near that selfsame sea,
Onegin, pausing, thought of me.
* * *
I lived back then in dry Odessa …
Where skies for endless days are clear,
Where commerce, bustling, crowds and presses
And sets its sails for far and near;
Where all breathes Europe to the senses,
And sparkling Southern sun dispenses
A lively, varied atmosphere.
Along the merry streets you’ll hear
Italian voices ringing loudly;
You’ll meet the haughty Slav, the Greek,
Armenian, Spaniard, Frenchman sleek,
The stout Moldavian prancing proudly;
And Egypt’s son as well you’ll see,
The one-time corsair, Moralí*
* * *
Our friend Tumánsky* sang enchanted
Odessa’s charms in splendid verse,
But we must say that he was granted
A partial view—the poet’s curse.
No sooner here than he went roaming,
Lorgnette in hand and senses foaming,
Above the lonely sea … and then
With his enraptured poet’s pen
He praised Odessa’s gardens greatly.
That’s fine of course, but all I’ve found
Is barren steppeland all around,
Though here and there much labour lately
Has forced young boughs, I must admit,
To spread their grudging shade a bit.
* * *
But where’s my rambling story rushing?
‘In dry Odessa’—so said I.
I might have said: ‘Odessa gushing’
And even so have told no lie.
For six whole weeks it happens yearly,
On stormy Zeus’s orders clearly:
Odessa’s flooded, drowned, and stuck,
Immersed in thickly oozing muck.
In mud waist-high the houses snuggle;
On stilts alone can feeble feet
Attempt to ford the muddy street.
The coaches and the people struggle,
And then the bent-head oxen pant
To do what helpless horses can’t.
* * *
But now the hammer’s smashing boulders,
And soon with ringing slabs of slate
The salvaged streets will muster shoulders,
As if encased in armoured plate.
But moist Odessa, all too sadly,
Is lacking yet one feature badly:
You’ll never guess … it’s water-short!
To find the stuff is heavy sport …
But why succumb to grim emotion?
Especially since the local wine
Is duty free and rather fine.
And then there’s Southern sun and ocean…
What more, my friends, could you demand?
A blesséd and most favoured land!
* * *
No sooner would the cannon, sounding,
Proclaim from ship the dawn of day
Than, down the sloping shoreline bounding,
Towards the sea I’d make my way.
And there, my glowing pipe ignited,
By briny waves refreshed and righted,
In Muslim paradise complete,
I’d sip my Turkish coffee sweet.
I take a stroll. Inciting urges,
The great Casino’s opened up;
I hear the ring of glass and cup;
The marker, half asleep, emerges
Upon the porch, with broom in hand,
Where two expectant merchants stand.
* * *
And soon the square grows gay and vital.
Life pulses full as here and there,
Preoccupied by work … or idle,
All race about on some affair.
That child of ventures and finances,
The merchant to the port advances,
To learn the news: has heaven brought
The long-awaited sail he sought?
Which just-delivered importations
Have gone in quarantine today?
Which wines have come without delay?
And how’s the plague? What conflagrations,
What wars and famines have occurred?
He has to have the latest word.
* * *
But we, we band of callow joysters,
Unlike those merchants filled with cares,
Have been expecting only oysters …
From Istanbul, the seaside’s wares.
What news of oysters? Here? What rapture!
And off runs glutton youth to capture
And slurp from salty shells those bites
Of plump and living anchorites,
With just a dash of lemon flavour.
What din, debates! The good Automne*
From cellar store has just now come
With sparkling wine for us to savour.
The time goes by and, as it goes,
The bill to awesome stature grows.
* * *
But now blue evening starts to darken,
And to the opera we must get,
The great Rossini there to harken,
Proud Orpheus and Europe’s pet.
Before no critic will he grovel,
He’s ever constant, ever novel;
He pours out tunes that effervesce,
That in their burning flow caress
The soul with endless youthful kisses,
With sweetly flaming love’s refrain,
A golden, sparkling fine champagne,
A stream that bubbles, foams, and hisses.
But can one justly, friends of mine,
Compare this do-re-mi with wine?
* * *
And what of other fascinations?
And what of keen lorgnettes, I say …?
And in the wings … the assignations?
The prima donna? The ballet?
The loge, where, beautiful and gleaming,
The merchant’s youthful wife sits dreaming,
All vain and languorous with pride,
A crowd of slaves on every side?
She heeds and doesn’t heed the roses,
The cavatina, heated sighs,
The jesting praise, the pleading eyes …
While in the back her husband dozes,
Cries out from sleep Encore!—and then
Emits a yawn and snores again.
* * *
The great finale’s thunder surges.
In noisy haste the throng departs;
Upon the square the crowd emerges,
Beneath the gleam of lamps and stars.
Ausonia’s* happy sons are humming
The playful tune that keeps on drumming,
Against the will, inside their brains—
While T roar out the light refrains.
But now it’s late.
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