No More Learning

VII

Assemblies oligarchical
Please her by their decorum fixed,
The rigour of cold pride and all
Titles and ages intermixed.
But who in that choice company
With clouded brow stands silently?
Unknown to all he doth appear,
A vision desolate and drear
Doth seem to him the festal scene.
Doth his brow wretchedness declare
Or suffering pride? Why is he there?
Who may he be? Is it Eugene?
Pray is it he? It is the same.
"And is it long since back he came?

VIII

"Is he the same or grown more wise?
Still doth the misanthrope appear?
He has returned, say in what guise?
What is his latest character?
What doth he act?
Is it Melmoth,(80)
Philanthropist or patriot,
Childe Harold, quaker, devotee,
Or other mask donned playfully?
Or a good fellow for the nonce,
Like you and me and all the rest? --
But this is my advice, 'twere best
Not to behave as he did once--
Society he duped enow. "
"Is he known to you? "--"Yes and No. "

[Note 80: A romance by Maturin. ]

IX

Wherefore regarding him express
Perverse, unfavourable views?
Is it that human restlessness
For ever carps, condemns, pursues?
Is it that ardent souls of flame
By recklessness amuse or shame
Selfish nonentities around?
That mind which yearns for space is bound?
And that too often we receive
Professions eagerly for deeds,
That crass stupidity misleads,
That we by cant ourselves deceive,
That mediocrity alone
Without disgust we look upon?

X

Happy he who in youth was young,
Happy who timely grew mature,
He who life's frosts which early wrung
Hath gradually learnt to endure;
By visions who was ne'er deranged
Nor from the mob polite estranged,
At twenty who was prig or swell,
At thirty who was married well,
At fifty who relief obtained
From public and from private ties,
Who glory, wealth and dignities
Hath tranquilly in turn attained,
And unto whom we all allude
As to a worthy man and good!

XI

But sad is the reflection made,
In vain was youth by us received,
That we her constantly betrayed
And she at last hath us deceived;
That our desires which noblest seemed,
The purest of the dreams we dreamed,
Have one by one all withered grown
Like rotten leaves by Autumn strown--
'Tis fearful to anticipate
Nought but of dinners a long row,
To look on life as on a show,
Eternally to imitate
The seemly crowd, partaking nought
Its passions and its modes of thought.

XII

The butt of scandal having been,
'Tis dreadful--ye agree, I hope--
To pass with reasonable men
For a fictitious misanthrope,
A visionary mortified,
Or monster of Satanic pride,
Or e'en the "Demon" of my strain. (81)
Oneguine--take him up again--
In duel having killed his friend
And reached, with nought his mind to engage,
The twenty-sixth year of his age,
Wearied of leisure in the end,
Without profession, business, wife,
He knew not how to spend his life.

[Note 81: The "Demon," a short poem by Pushkin which at its first
appearance created some excitement in Russian society.