No More Learning

Sickness more courage doth command
Than health, so with a trembling hand
A love epistle he doth scrawl.
Though correspondence as a rule
He used to hate--and was no fool--
Yet suffering emotional
Had rendered him an invalid;
But word for word his letter read.

Oneguine's Letter to Tattiana

All is foreseen. My secret drear
Will sound an insult in your ear.
What acrimonious scorn I trace
Depicted on your haughty face!
What do I ask? What cause assigned
That I to you reveal my mind?
To what malicious merriment,
It may be, I yield nutriment!

Meeting you in times past by chance,
Warmth I imagined in your glance,
But, knowing not the actual truth,
Restrained the impulses of youth;
Also my wretched liberty
I would not part with finally;
This separated us as well--
Lenski, unhappy victim, fell,
From everything the heart held dear
I then resolved my heart to tear;
Unknown to all, without a tie,
I thought--retirement, liberty,
Will happiness replace. My God!
How I have erred and felt the rod!

No, ever to behold your face,
To follow you in every place,
Your smiling lips, your beaming eyes,
To watch with lovers' ecstasies,
Long listen, comprehend the whole
Of your perfections in my soul,
Before you agonized to die--
This, this were true felicity!

But such is not for me. I brood
Daily of love in solitude.
My days of life approach their end,
Yet I in idleness expend
The remnant destiny concedes,
And thus each stubbornly proceeds.
I feel, allotted is my span;
But, that life longer may remain,
At morn I must assuredly
Know that thy face that day I see.

I tremble lest my humble prayer
You with stern countenance declare
The artifice of villany--
I hear your harsh, reproachful cry.
If ye but knew how dreadful 'tis
To bear love's parching agonies--
To burn, yet reason keep awake
The fever of the blood to slake--
A passionate desire to bend
And, sobbing at your feet, to blend
Entreaties, woes and prayers, confess
All that the heart would fain express--
Yet with a feigned frigidity
To arm the tongue and e'en the eye,
To be in conversation clear
And happy unto you appear.

So be it! But internal strife
I cannot longer wage concealed.
The die is cast! Thine is my life!
Into thy hands my fate I yield!

XXXII

No answer! He another sent.
Epistle second, note the third,
Remained unnoticed. Once he went
To an assembly--she appeared
Just as he entered. How severe!
She will not see, she will not hear.
Alas! she is as hard, behold,
And frosty as a Twelfth Night cold.