The imagination to enliven

With love which happiness extends;

Against my inclination, friends,

By sympathy I have been driven.

Forgive me! Such the love I bear

My heroine, Tattiana dear.

XIX

Vladimir, hourly more a slave

To youthful Olga's beauty bright,

Into delicious bondage gave

His ardent soul with full delight.

Always together, eventide

Found them in darkness side by side,

At morn, hand clasped in hand, they rove

Around the meadow and the grove.

And what resulted? Drunk with love,

But with confused and bashful air,

Lenski at intervals would dare,

If Olga smilingly approve,

Dally with a dishevelled tress

Or kiss the border of her dress.

XX

To Olga frequently he would

Some nice instructive novel read,

Whose author nature understood

Better than Chateaubriand did

Yet sometimes pages two or three

(Nonsense and pure absurdity,

For maiden's hearing deemed unfit),

He somewhat blushing would omit:

Far from the rest the pair would creep

And (elbows on the table) they

A game of chess would often play,

Buried in meditation deep,

Till absently Vladimir took

With his own pawn alas! his rook!

XXI

Homeward returning, he at home

Is occupied with Olga fair,

An album, fly-leaf of the tome,

He leisurely adorns for her.

Landscapes thereon he would design,

A tombstone, Aphrodite's shrine,

Or, with a pen and colours fit,

A dove which on a lyre doth sit;

The "in memoriam" pages sought,

Where many another hand had signed

A tender couplet he combined,

A register of fleeting thought,

A flimsy trace of musings past

Which might for many ages last.

XXII

Surely ye all have overhauled

A country damsel's album trim,

Which all her darling friends have scrawled

From first to last page to the rim.

Behold! orthography despising,

Metreless verses recognizing

By friendship how they were abused,

Hewn, hacked, and otherwise ill-used.

Upon the opening page ye find:

Qu'ecrirer-vouz sur ces tablettes?

Subscribed, toujours a vous, Annette;

And on the last one, underlined:

Who in thy love finds more delight

Beyond this may attempt to write.

XXIII

Infallibly you there will find

Two hearts, a torch, of flowers a wreath,

And vows will probably be signed:

Affectionately yours till death.

Some army poet therein may

Have smuggled his flagitious lay.

In such an album with delight

I would, my friends, inscriptions write,

Because I should be sure, meanwhile,

My verses, kindly meant, would earn

Delighted glances in return;

That afterwards with evil smile

They would not solemnly debate

If cleverly or not I prate.

XXIV

But, O ye tomes without compare,

Which from the devil's bookcase start,

Albums magnificent which scare

The fashionable rhymester's heart!

Yea! although rendered beauteous

By Tolstoy's pencil marvellous,

Though Baratynski verses penned,(45)

The thunderbolt on you descend!

Whene'er a brilliant courtly dame

Presents her quarto amiably,

Despair and anger seize on me,

And a malicious epigram

Trembles upon my lips from spite,—

And madrigals I'm asked to write!

[Note 45: Count Tolstoy, a celebrated artist who subsequently became Vice-President of the Academy of Arts at St. Petersburg. Baratynski, see Note 43.]

XXV

But Lenski madrigals ne'er wrote

In Olga's album, youthful maid,

To purest love he tuned his note

Nor frigid adulation paid.

What never was remarked or heard

Of Olga he in song averred;

His elegies, which plenteous streamed,

Both natural and truthful seemed.

Thus thou, Yazykoff, dost arise(46)

In amorous flights when so inspired,

Singing God knows what maid admired,

And all thy precious elegies,