This dreadful ailment's heavy toll;
The
We call it simply
'Twas this our hero had contracted;
And though, thank God, he never acted
To put a bullet through his head,
His former love of life was dead.
Like Byron's Harold, lost in trances,
Through drawing rooms he'd pass and stare;
But neither whist, nor gossip there,
Nor wanton sighs, nor tender glances
No, nothing touched his sombre heart,
He noticed nothing, took no part.
(39-41) 42
Capricious belles of lofty station!
You were the first that he forswore;
For nowadays in our great nation,
The manner grand can only bore.
I wouldn't say that ladies never
Discuss a Say or Bentham*ever;
But generally, you'll have to grant,
Their talk's absurd, if harmless, cant.
On top of which, they're so unerring,
So dignified, so awfully smart,
So pious and so chaste of heart,
So circumspect, so strict in bearing,
So inaccessibly serene,
Mere sight of them brings on the spleen.*
43
You too, young mistresses of leisure,
Who late at night are whisked away
In racing droshkies bound for pleasure
Along the Petersburg
He dropped you too in sudden fashion.
Apostate from the storms of passion,
He locked himself within his den
And, with a yawn, took up his pen
And tried to write. But art's exaction
Of steady labour made him ill,
And nothing issued from his quill;
So thus he failed to join the faction
Of writerswhom I won't condemn
Since, after all, I'm one of them.
44
Once more an idler, now he smothers
The emptiness that plagues his soul
By making his the thoughts of others
A laudable and worthy goal.
He crammed his bookshelf overflowing,
Then read and readfrustration growing:
