PUSHKIN.
FROM "ONEGIN"
Love condescends to every altar,
Ah when in hearts of youth it springs,
Its coming brings such glad refreshment
As May rain o'er the pasture flings!
Lifted from passion's melancholy
The life breaks forth in fairer flower,
The soul receives a new enrichment—
Fruition sweet and full of power.
But when on later altars arid
It downward sweeps, about us flows—
Love leaves behind such deathly traces
As Autumn tempests where it blows
To strip the woods with ruthless hand,
And turn to soggy waste the land!
PUSHKIN.
FROM "ONEGIN"
How sad to me is thine appearing,
O Springtime, hour of love's unrest!
Within the soul what nameless languors!
What passions hid within the breast!
With what a heavy, heavy spirit
From the earth's rustic lap I feel
Again the joy of Springtide odors—
That once could make my spirit reel!
No more for me such pleasures thrilling,
All that rejoices, that has life,
All that exults,—brings but despondence
To one past passion as past strife,
All is but prose to such as he,
Wearied unto satiety.
Perchance we fain would pass unnoticed
That which in Autumn drooped and pined,
Now radiant in verdure springing,
Since it must of our loss remind;
As with a tortured soul we realize
In Nature's glad awakening,
That we shall never find renewal,
Who evermore are withering.
Perchance there haunts us in remembrance,
Our own most dear and lyric dream,
Another long forgotten Springtime—
And trembling neath this pang supreme,
The heart faints for a distant country
And for a night beside the sea!
PUSHKIN.
THE MEMORIAL
Beyond compare the monument I have erected,
And to this spirit column well-worn the people's path,—
Its head defiant will out-soar that famous pillar
The Emperor Alexander hath!