And sighed, recalling their interment.
Oh, happy he who's known the ferment
Of passions and escaped their lot;
More happy he who knew them not,
Who cooled off love with separation
And enmity with harsh contempt;
Who yawned with wife and friends, exempt
From pangs of jealous agitation;
Who never risked his sound estate
Upon a deuce, that cunning bait.
18
When we at last turn into sages
And flock to tranquil wisdom's crest;
When passion's flame no longer rages,
And all the yearnings in our breast,
The wayward fits, the final surges,
Have all become mere comic urges,
And pain has made us humble men
We sometimes like to listen then
As others tell of passions swelling;
They stir our hearts and fan the flame.
Just so a soldier, old and lame,
Forgotten in his wretched dwelling,
Will strain to hear with bated breath
The youngbloods' yarns of courting death.
19
But flaming youth in all its madness
Keeps nothing of its heart concealed:
Its loves and hates, its joy and sadness,
Are babbled out and soon revealed.
Onegin, who was widely taken
As one whom love had left forsaken,
Would listen gravely to the end
When self-expression gripped his friend;
The poet, feasting on confession,
Naively poured his secrets out;
And so Eugene learned all about
The course of youthful love's progression
A story rich in feelings too,
Although to us they're hardly new.
20
Ah yes, he loved in such a fashion
As men today no longer do;
As only poets, mad with passion,
Still love . . . because they're fated to.
He knew one constant source of dreaming,
One constant wish forever gleaming,
One ever-present cause for pain!
And neither distance, nor the chain
