V
However, Tania's letter reading,
Eugene was touched with sympathy;
The language of her girlish pleading
Aroused in him sweet reverie.
He called to mind Tattiana's grace,
Pallid and melancholy face,
And in a vision, sinless, bright,
His spirit sank with strange delight.
May be the empire of the sense,
Regained authority awhile,
But he desired not to beguile
Such open-hearted innocence.
But to the garden once again
Wherein we lately left the twain.
VI
Two minutes they in silence spent,
Oneguine then approached and said:
'You have a letter to me sent.
Do not excuse yourself. I read
Confessions which a trusting heart
May well in innocence impart.
Charming is your sincerity,
Feelings which long had ceased to be
It wakens in my breast again.
But I came not to adulate:
Your frankness I shall compensate
By an avowal just as plain.
An ear to my confession lend;
To thy decree my will I bend.
VII
'If the domestic hearth could bless—
My sum of happiness contained;
If wife and children to possess
A happy destiny ordained:
If in the scenes of home I might
E'en for an instant find delight,
Then, I say truly, none but thee
I would desire my bride to be—
I say without poetic phrase,
Found the ideal of my youth,
Thee only would I choose, in truth,
As partner of my mournful days,
Thee only, pledge of all things bright,
And be as happy—as I might.
VIII
'But strange am I to happiness;
'Tis foreign to my cast of thought;
Me your perfections would not bless;
I am not worthy them in aught;
