But no! Each moment of my days
To see you and pursue you madly!
To catch your smile and search your gaze
With loving eyes that seek you gladly;
To melt with pain before your face,
To hear your voice. . . to try to capture
With all my soul your perfect grace;
To swoon and pass away . . . what rapture!
And I'm deprived of this; for you
I search on all the paths I wander;
Each day is dear, each moment too!
Yet I in futile dullness squander
These days allotted me by fate . .
. Oppressive days indeed of late.
My span on earth is all but taken,
But lest too soon I join the dead,
I need to know when I awaken,
I'll see you in the day ahead....
I fear that in this meek petition
Your solemn gaze may only spy
The cunning of a base ambition
And I can hear your stern reply.
But if you knew the anguish in it:
To thirst with love in every part,
To burnand with the mind each minute,
To calm the tumult in one's heart;
To long to clasp in adoration
Your knees . . . and, sobbing at your feet,
Pour out confessions, lamentation,
Oh, all that I might then entreat!. ..
And meantime, feigning resignation,
To arm my gaze and speech with lies:
to look at you with cheerful eyes
And hold a placid conversation!. . .
But let it be: it's now too late
For me to struggle at this hour;
The die is cast: I'm in your power,
And I surrender to my fate.
33
No answer came. Eugene elected
to write again . . . and then once more
With no reply. He drives, dejected,
To some soire . . . and by the door,
Sees her at once! Her harshness stuns him!
Without a word the lady shuns him!
My god! How stern that haughty brow,
What wintry frost surrounds her now!
Her lips express determination
To keep her fury in control!
Onegin stares with all his soul:
