Евгений Онегин / Eugene Onegin

For promises her feet reveal

Of untold gain she must conceal,

Their privileged allurements fire

A hidden train of wild desire.

I love them, O my dear Elvine[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.],

Beneath the table-cloth of white,

In winter on the fender bright,

In springtime on the meadows green,

Upon the ball-room’s glassy floor

Or by the ocean’s rocky shore.

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 Onegin? 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[15 - The milkmaid from the Okhta villages, a suburb of St.

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.