No More Learning

[Note 14: _Elvine_, or _Elvina_, was not improbably the owner of the
seductive feet apostrophized by the poet, since, in 1816, he wrote
an ode, "To Her," which commences thus:

"Elvina, my dear, come, give me thine hand," and so forth. ]

XXX

Beside the stormy sea one day
I envied sore the billows tall,
Which rushed in eager dense array
Enamoured at her feet to fall.
How like the billow I desired
To kiss the feet which I admired!
No, never in the early blaze
Of fiery youth's untutored days
So ardently did I desire
A young Armida's lips to press,
Her cheek of rosy loveliness
Or bosom full of languid fire,--
A gust of passion never tore
My spirit with such pangs before.

XXXI

Another time, so willed it Fate,
Immersed in secret thought I stand
And grasp a stirrup fortunate--
Her foot was in my other hand.
Again imagination blazed,
The contact of the foot I raised
Rekindled in my withered heart
The fires of passion and its smart--
Away! and cease to ring their praise
For ever with thy tattling lyre,
The proud ones are not worth the fire
Of passion they so often raise.
The words and looks of charmers sweet
Are oft deceptive--like their feet.

XXXII

Where is Oneguine? Half asleep,
Straight from the ball to bed he goes,
Whilst Petersburg from slumber deep
The drum already doth arouse.
The shopman and the pedlar rise
And to the Bourse the cabman plies;
The Okhtenka with pitcher speeds,(15)
Crunching the morning snow she treads;
Morning awakes with joyous sound;
The shutters open; to the skies
In column blue the smoke doth rise;
The German baker looks around
His shop, a night-cap on his head,
And pauses oft to serve out bread.

[Note 15: i. e. the milkmaid from the Okhta villages, a suburb of St.
Petersburg on the right bank of the Neva chiefly inhabited by the
labouring classes.
]

XXXIII

But turning morning into night,
Tired by the ball's incessant noise,
The votary of vain delight
Sleep in the shadowy couch enjoys,
Late in the afternoon to rise,
When the same life before him lies
Till morn--life uniform but gay,
To-morrow just like yesterday.
But was our friend Eugene content,
Free, in the blossom of his spring,
Amidst successes flattering
And pleasure's daily blandishment,
Or vainly 'mid luxurious fare
Was he in health and void of care? --

XXXIV

Even so! His passions soon abated,
Hateful the hollow world became,
Nor long his mind was agitated
By love's inevitable flame.
For treachery had done its worst;
Friendship and friends he likewise curst,
Because he could not gourmandise
Daily beefsteaks and Strasbourg pies
And irrigate them with champagne;
Nor slander viciously could spread
Whene'er he had an aching head;
And, though a plucky scatterbrain,
He finally lost all delight
In bullets, sabres, and in fight.

XXXV

His malady, whose cause I ween
It now to investigate is time,
Was nothing but the British spleen
Transported to our Russian clime.
It gradually possessed his mind;
Though, God be praised! he ne'er designed
To slay himself with blade or ball,
Indifferent he became to all,
And like Childe Harold gloomily
He to the festival repairs,
Nor boston nor the world's affairs
Nor tender glance nor amorous sigh
Impressed him in the least degree,--
Callous to all he seemed to be.

XXXVI

Ye miracles of courtly grace,
He left _you_ first, and I must own
The manners of the highest class
Have latterly vexatious grown;
And though perchance a lady may
Discourse of Bentham or of Say,
Yet as a rule their talk I call
Harmless, but quite nonsensical.
Then they're so innocent of vice,
So full of piety, correct,
So prudent, and so circumspect
Stately, devoid of prejudice,
So inaccessible to men,
Their looks alone produce the spleen. (16)

[Note 16: Apropos of this somewhat ungallant sentiment, a Russian
scholiast remarks:--"The whole of this ironical stanza is but a
_refined eulogy_ of the excellent qualities of our countrywomen.
Thus Boileau, in the guise of invective, eulogizes Louis XIV.
Russian ladies unite in their persons great acquirements,
combined with amiability and strict morality; also a species of
Oriental charm which so much captivated Madame de Stael. " It will
occur to most that the apologist of the Russian fair "doth
protest too much. " The poet in all probability wrote the offending
stanza in a fit of Byronic "spleen," as he would most likely
himself have called it. Indeed, since Byron, poets of his school
seem to assume this virtue if they have it not, and we take their
utterances under its influence for what they are worth.