XX
'To-morrow's dawn will glimmer gray,
Bright day will then begin to burn,
But the dark sepulchre I may
Have entered never to return.
The memory of the bard, a dream,
Will be absorbed by Lethe's stream;
Men will forget me, but my urn
To visit, lovely maid, return,
O'er my remains to drop a tear,
And think: here lies who loved me well,
For consecrate to me he fell
In the dawn of existence drear.
Maid whom my heart desires alone,
Approach, approach; I am thine own.'
XXI
Thus in a style
He wrote ('tis the romantic style,
Though of romance therein I fail
To see aught—never mind meanwhile)
And about dawn upon his breast
His weary head declined at rest,
For o'er a word to fashion known,
'Ideal,' he had drowsy grown.
But scarce had sleep's soft witchery
Subdued him, when his neighbour stept
Into the chamber where he slept
And wakened him with the loud cry:
''Tis time to get up! Seven doth strike.
Oneguine waits on us, 'tis like.'
[Note 64: The fact of the above words being italicised suggests the idea that the poet is here firing a Parthian shot at some unfriendly critic.]
XXII
He was in error; for Eugene
Was sleeping then a sleep like death;
The pall of night was growing thin,
To Lucifer the cock must breathe
His song, when still he slumbered deep,
The sun had mounted high his steep,
A passing snowstorm wreathed away
With pallid light, but Eugene lay
Upon his couch insensibly;
Slumber still o'er him lingering flies.
But finally he oped his eyes
And turned aside the drapery;
He gazed upon the clock which showed
He long should have been on the road.
XXIII
He rings in haste; in haste arrives
His Frenchman, good Monsieur Guillot,
Who dressing-gown and slippers gives
