No More Learning

Croly. ]

XIII

My friends, what means this odd digression?
May be that I by heaven's decrees
Shall abdicate the bard's profession,
And shall adopt some new caprice.
Thus having braved Apollo's rage
With humble prose I'll fill my page
And a romance in ancient style
Shall my declining years beguile;
Nor shall my pen paint terribly
The torment born of crime unseen,
But shall depict the touching scene
Of Russian domesticity;
I will descant on love's sweet dream,
The olden time shall be my theme.

XIV

Old people's simple conversations
My unpretending page shall fill,
Their offspring's innocent flirtations
By the old lime-tree or the rill,
Their Jealousy and separation
And tears of reconciliation:
Fresh cause of quarrel then I'll find,
But finally in wedlock bind.
The passionate speeches I'll repeat,
Accents of rapture or despair
I uttered to my lady fair
Long ago, prostrate at her feet.
Then they came easily enow,
My tongue is somewhat rusty now.

XV

Tattiana! sweet Tattiana, see!
What bitter tears with thee I shed!
Thou hast resigned thy destiny
Unto a ruthless tyrant dread.
Thou'lt suffer, dearest, but before,
Hope with her fascinating power
To dire contentment shall give birth
And thou shalt taste the joys of earth.
Thou'lt quaff love's sweet envenomed stream,
Fantastic images shall swarm
In thy imagination warm,
Of happy meetings thou shalt dream,
And wheresoe'er thy footsteps err,
Confront thy fated torturer!

XVI

Love's pangs Tattiana agonize.
She seeks the garden in her need--
Sudden she stops, casts down her eyes
And cares not farther to proceed;
Her bosom heaves whilst crimson hues
With sudden flush her cheeks suffuse,
Barely to draw her breath she seems,
Her eye with fire unwonted gleams.
And now 'tis night, the guardian moon
Sails her allotted course on high,
And from the misty woodland nigh
The nightingale trills forth her tune;
Restless Tattiana sleepless lay
And thus unto her nurse did say:

XVII

"Nurse, 'tis so close I cannot rest.
Open the window--sit by me. "
"What ails thee, dear? "--"I feel depressed.
Relate some ancient history. "
"But which, my dear? --In days of yore
Within my memory I bore
Many an ancient legend which
In monsters and fair dames was rich;
But now my mind is desolate,
What once I knew is clean forgot--
Alas! how wretched now my lot! "
"But tell me, nurse, can you relate
The days which to your youth belong?
Were you in love when you were young? "--

XVIII

"Alack! Tattiana," she replied,
"We never loved in days of old,
My mother-in-law who lately died(34)
Had killed me had the like been told. "
"How came you then to wed a man? "--
"Why, as God ordered! My Ivan
Was younger than myself, my light,
For I myself was thirteen quite;(35)
The matchmaker a fortnight sped,
Her suit before my parents pressing:
At last my father gave his blessing,
And bitter tears of fright I shed.
Weeping they loosed my tresses long(36)
And led me off to church with song.