To-day or to-morrow we must die,
Perfílev, and all is ended.
Why, then, lament or be afflicted
That thy friend did not live for ever?
Life is but a momentary loan from Heaven:
Spend it then in resignation and in peace,
And with a pure soul
Learn to kiss the chastening rod.
—From C. E. Turner’s Studies in Russian Literature, and the same in Fraser’s Magazine, 1877.