The gambler's here with dice all loaded,
With decks of cards of every type,
The landed gentwith daughters ripe,
Bedraped in dresses long outmoded;
All bustle round and lie like cheats,
And commerce reigns in all the streets
* * * Ennui! . . .
ONEGIN DRIVES TO ASTRAKHAN, AND FROM THERE TO THE CAUCASUS
* * *
He sees the wilful Terek* roaring
Outside its banks in wayward flow;
He spies a stately eagle soaring,
A standing deer with horns held low,
By shaded cliff a camel lying,
Circassian steed on meadow flying;
All round the nomad-tented land
The sheep of Kalmuk herdsmen stand,
And far aheadCaucasian masses.
The way lies open; war has passed
Beyond this great divide at last,
Across these once imperilled passes.
The Kra's and Argva's banks*
Have seen the Russians' tented ranks.
* * *
And now his gazing eye discovers
Beshtu,* the watchman of the waste;
Sharp-peaked and ringed by hills, it hovers . . .
And there's Mashk,* all green-encased,
Mashk, the source of healing waters;
Amid its magic brooks and quarters
In pallid swarms the patients press,
All victims: someof war's distress,
And some of Venus, some of Piles.
Within those waves each martyred soul
Would mend life's thread and make it whole;
Coquettes would leave their ageing smiles
Beneath the waves, while older men
For just one day seek youth again.
* * *
Consumed by bitter meditation,
Onegin, mid those mournful crowds,
With gaze of keen commiseration
Regards those streams and smoky clouds,
And with a wistful sigh he muses:
Oh, why have I no bullet's bruises?
Or why am I not old and spare,
Like that poor tax collector there?
Or why not crippled with arthritis,
The fate that Tula clerk was dealt?
And why #62038; Lordhave I not felt
