And now, my friends, I hear once more
That question you have put before:
'For whom these sighs your lyre raises?
To whom amid the jealous throng
Do you today devote your song?
58
'Whose gaze, evoking inspiration,
Rewards you with a soft caress?
Whose form, in pensive adoration,
Do you now clothe in sacred dress?'
Why no one, friends, as God's my witness,
For I have known too well the witless
And maddened pangs of love's refrain.
Oh, blest is he who joins his pain
To fevered rhyme: for thus he doubles
The sacred ecstasy of art;
Like Petrarch then, he calms the heart,
Subduing passion's host of troubles,
And captures worldly fame to boot!
But I, in love, was dense and mute.
59
The Muse appeared as love was ending
And cleared the darkened mind she found.
Once free, I seek again the blending
Of feeling, thought, and magic sound.
I write .. . and want no more embraces;
My straying pen no longer traces,
Beneath a verse left incomplete,
The shapes of ladies' heads and feet.
Extinguished ashes won't rekindle,
And though I grieve, I weep no more;
And soon, quite soon, the tempest's core
Within my soul will fade and dwindle:
And
That's five and twenty cantos long!
60
I've drawn a plan and know what's needed,
The hero's named, the plotting's done;
And meantime I've just now completed
My present novel's Chapter One.
I've looked it over most severely;
It has its contradictions, clearly,
But I've no wish to change a line;
I'll grant the censor's right to shine
And send these fruits of inspiration
To feed the critics' hungry pen.
Fly to the Neva's water then,
My spirit's own newborn creation!
And earn me tribute paid to fame:
