Or as, more tenderly I'd say,
A butterfly in blooms of May;
But wretched he who's too far-sighted,
Whose head is never fancy-stirred,
Who hates all gestures, each warm word,
As sentiments to be derided,
Whose heart.. . experience has cooled
And barred from being loved ... or fooled!
Chapter 5
Oh, never know these frightful dreams, My dear Svetlana!
Zhukovsky
1
The fall that year was in no hurry,
And nature seemed to wait and wait
For winter. Then, in January,
The second night, the snow fell late.
Next day as dawn was just advancing,
Tatyana woke and, idly glancing,
Beheld outdoors a wondrous sight:
The roofs, the yard, the fenceall white;
Each pane a fragile pattern showing;
The trees in winter silver dyed,
Gay magpies on the lawn outside,
And all the hilltops soft and glowing
With winter's brilliant rug of snow
The world all fresh and white below.
2
Ah, wintertime! . . . The peasant, cheerful,
Creates a passage with his sleigh;
Aware of snow, his nag is fearful,
But shambles somehow down the way.
A bold kibitka skips and burrows
And ploughs a trail of fluffy furrows;
The driver sits behind the dash
In sheepskin coat and scarlet sash.
And here's a household boy gone sleighing
His
While he plays horse and runs ahead;
The rascal froze his fingers, playing,
And laughs out loud between his howls,
While through the glass his mother scowls.
3
But you, perhaps, are not attracted
By pictures of this simple kind,
Where lowly nature is enacted
And nothing grand or more refined.
Warmed by the god of inspiration,
Another bard in exaltation
Has painted us the snow new-laid
And winter's joys in every shade.*
