Impressionable for an hour,

And breathe the balmy breath of night;

And like the prisoner's our delight

Who for the greenwood quits his tower,

As on the rapid wings of thought

The early days of life we sought.

[Note 17: The midsummer nights in the latitude of St. Petersburg are a prolonged twilight.]

XLII

Absorbed in melancholy mood

And o'er the granite coping bent,

Oneguine meditative stood,

E'en as the poet says he leant.(18)

'Tis silent all! Alone the cries

Of the night sentinels arise

And from the Millionaya afar(19)

The sudden rattling of a car.

Lo! on the sleeping river borne,

A boat with splashing oar floats by,

And now we hear delightedly

A jolly song and distant horn;

But sweeter in a midnight dream

Torquato Tasso's strains I deem.

[Note 18: Refers to Mouravieff's "Goddess of the Neva." At St. Petersburg the banks of the Neva are lined throughout with splendid granite quays.]

[Note 19: A street running parallel to the Neva, and leading from the Winter Palace to the Summer Palace and Garden.]

XLIII

Ye billows of blue Hadria's sea,

O Brenta, once more we shall meet

And, inspiration firing me,

Your magic voices I shall greet,

Whose tones Apollo's sons inspire,

And after Albion's proud lyre (20)

Possess my love and sympathy.

The nights of golden Italy

I'll pass beneath the firmament,

Hid in the gondola's dark shade,

Alone with my Venetian maid,

Now talkative, now reticent;

From her my lips shall learn the tongue

Of love which whilom Petrarch sung.

[Note 20: The strong influence exercised by Byron's genius on the imagination of Pushkin is well known. Shakespeare and other English dramatists had also their share in influencing his mind, which, at all events in its earlier developments, was of an essentially imitative type. As an example of his Shakespearian tastes, see his poem of "Angelo," founded upon "Measure for Measure."]

XLIV

When will my hour of freedom come!

Time, I invoke thee! favouring gales

Awaiting on the shore I roam

And beckon to the passing sails.

Upon the highway of the sea

When shall I wing my passage free

On waves by tempests curdled o'er!

'Tis time to quit this weary shore

So uncongenial to my mind,

To dream upon the sunny strand

Of Africa, ancestral land,(21)

Of dreary Russia left behind,

Wherein I felt love's fatal dart,

Wherein I buried left my heart.

[Note 21: The poet was, on his mother's side, of African extraction, a circumstance which perhaps accounts for the southern fervour of his imagination. His great-grandfather, Abraham Petrovitch Hannibal, was seized on the coast of Africa when eight years of age by a corsair, and carried a slave to Constantinople. The Russian Ambassador bought and presented him to Peter the Great who caused him to be baptized at Vilnius. Subsequently one of Hannibal's brothers made his way to Constantinople and thence to St. Petersburg for the purpose of ransoming him; but Peter would not surrender his godson who died at the age of ninety-two, having attained the rank of general in the Russian service.]

XLV

Eugene designed with me to start

And visit many a foreign clime,

But Fortune cast our lots apart

For a protracted space of time.

Just at that time his father died,

And soon Oneguine's door beside

Of creditors a hungry rout

Their claims and explanations shout.

But Eugene, hating litigation

And with his lot in life content,

To a surrender gave consent,

Seeing in this no deprivation,

Or counting on his uncle's death

And what the old man might bequeath.

XLVI

And in reality one day

The steward sent a note to tell

How sick to death his uncle lay

And wished to say to him farewell.

Having this mournful document

Perused, Eugene in postchaise went

And hastened to his uncle's side,

But in his heart dissatisfied,

Having for money's sake alone

Sorrow to counterfeit and wail—

Thus we began our little tale—

But, to his uncle's mansion flown,

He found him on the table laid,

A due which must to earth be paid.

XLVII

The courtyard full of serfs he sees,

And from the country all around

Had come both friends and enemies—

Funeral amateurs abound!

The body they consigned to rest,

And then made merry pope and guest,

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,