Their quartos to be signed by me,
I tremble with malicious glee;
My soul cries out and longs to offer
An epigram of cunning spite
But madrigals they'll have you write!
31
No madrigals of mere convention
Does Olga's Lensky thus compose;
His pen breathes love, not pure invention
Or sparkling wit as cold as prose;
Whatever comes to his attention
Concerning Olga,
And filled with truth's own vivid glows
A stream of elegies then flows.
* Thus you, Yazykov,* with perfection,
With all the surgings of your heart,
Sing God knows whom in splendid art
Sweet elegies, whose full collection
Will on some future day relate
The uncut story of your fate.
32
But hush! A strident critic rises
And bids us cast away the crown
Of elegy in all its guises
And to our rhyming guild calls down:
'Have done with all your lamentations,
Your endless croakings and gyrations
On 'former days' and 'times of yore';
Enough now! Sing of something more!'
You're right. And will you point with praises
To trumpet, mask, and dagger* too,
And bid us thuswise to renew
Our stock of dead ideas and phrases?
Is that it, friend?'Far from it. Nay!
Write odes,* good sirs, write odes, I say . . .
33
'The way they did in former ages,
Those mighty years still rich in fame. . .
.' Just solemn odes? .. . On all our pages?!
Oh come now, friend, it's all the same.
Recall the satirist, good brother,
And his sly odist in
Do you find him more pleasing, pray,
Than our glum rhymesters of today?.. . .
'Your elegy lacks all perception,
Its want of purpose is a crime;
Whereas the ode has aims sublime.
' One might to this take sharp exception,
But I'll be mute. I don't propose
To bring two centuries to blows.
