Eugene, his pistol yet in hand
And with remorseful anguish filled,
Gazing on Lenski's corse did stand—
Zaretski shouted: 'Why, he's killed!'—
Killed! at this dreadful exclamation
Oneguine went with trepidation
And the attendants called in haste.
Most carefully Zaretski placed
Within his sledge the stiffened corse,
And hurried home his awful freight.
Conscious of death approximate,
Loud paws the earth each panting horse,
His bit with foam besprinkled o'er,
And homeward like an arrow tore.
XXXIV
My friends, the poet ye regret!
When hope's delightful flower but bloomed
In bud of promise incomplete,
The manly toga scarce assumed,
He perished. Where his troubled dreams,
And where the admirable streams
Of youthful impulse, reverie,
Tender and elevated, free?
And where tempestuous love's desires,
The thirst of knowledge and of fame,
Horror of sinfulness and shame,
Imagination's sacred fires,
Ye shadows of a life more high,
Ye dreams of heavenly poesy?
XXXV
Perchance to benefit mankind,
Or but for fame he saw the light;
His lyre, to silence now consigned,
Resounding through all ages might
Have echoed to eternity.
With worldly honours, it may be,
Fortune the poet had repaid.
It may be that his martyred shade
Carried a truth divine away;
That, for the century designed,
Had perished a creative mind,
And past the threshold of decay,
He ne'er shall hear Time's eulogy,
The blessings of humanity.
XXXVI
Or, it may be, the bard had passed
A life in common with the rest;
Vanished his youthful years at last,
The fire extinguished in his breast,
In many things had changed his life—
