He who hath lived and living, thinks,

Must e'en despise his kind at last;

He who hath suffered ofttimes shrinks

From shades of the relentless past.

No fond illusions live to soothe,

But memory like a serpent's tooth

With late repentance gnaws and stings.

All this in many cases brings

A charm with it in conversation.

Oneguine's speeches I abhorred

At first, but soon became inured

To the sarcastic observation,

To witticisms and taunts half-vicious

And gloomy epigrams malicious.

XLI.

How oft, when on a summer night

Transparent o'er the Neva beamed

The firmament in mellow light,

And when the watery mirror gleamed

No more with pale Diana's rays,(17)

We called to mind our youthful days -

The days of love and of romance!

Then would we muse as in a trance,

Impressionable for an hour,

And breathe the balmy breath of night;

And like the prisoner's our delight

Who for the greenwood quits his tower,

As on the rapid wings of thought

The early days of life we sought.

[Note 17: The midsummer nights in the latitude of Saint Petersburg are a prolonged twilight.]

XLII.

Absorbed in melancholy mood

And o'er the granite coping bent,

Oneguine meditative stood,

E'en as the poet says he leant.(18)

'Tis silent all! Alone the cries