Евгений Онегин / Eugene Onegin

One has now to search for the very names of most of the popular authors of Pushkin’s day and rummage biographical dictionaries for the dates of their births and deaths. Yet the poet’s prime was but fifty years ago, and had he lived to a ripe old age he would have been amongst us still. He was four years younger than the late Mr. Thomas Carlyle. The decadence of Richardson’s popularity amongst his countrymen is a fact familiar to all.]

Werther, rebellious martyr bold,

And that unrivalled paragon,

The sleep-compelling Grandison,

Our tender dreamer had enrolled

A single being: ’twas in fine

No other than Onegin mine.

IX

Dreaming herself the heroine

Of the romances she preferred,

Clarissa, Julia, Delphine[29 - Referring to Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe, La Nouvelle Héloïse, and Madame de Stael’s Delphine.], —

Tattiana through the forest erred,

And the bad book accompanies.

Upon those pages she descries

Her passion’s faithful counterpart,

Fruit of the yearnings of the heart.

She heaves a sigh and deep intent

On raptures, sorrows not her own,

She murmurs in an undertone

A letter for her hero meant:

That hero, though his merit shone,

Was certainly no Grandison.

X

Alas! my friends, the years flit by

And after them at headlong pace

The evanescent fashions fly

In motley and amusing chase.

The world is ever altering!

Farthingales, patches, were the thing,

And courtier, fop, and usurer

Would once in powdered wig appear;

Time was, the poet’s tender quill

In hopes of everlasting fame

A finished madrigal would frame

Or couplets more ingenious still;

Time was, a valiant general might

Serve who could neither read nor write.

XI

Time was, in style magniloquent

Authors replete with sacred fire

Their heroes used to represent

All that perfection could desire;

Ever by adverse fate oppressed,

Their idols they were wont to invest

With intellect, a taste refined,

And handsome countenance combined,

A heart wherein pure passion burnt;

The excited hero in a trice

Was ready for self-sacrifice,

And in the final tome we learnt,

Vice had due punishment awarded,

Virtue was with a bride rewarded.

XII

But now our minds are mystified

And Virtue acts as a narcotic,

Vice in romance is glorified

And triumphs in career erotic.