Learn Russian, but the Lord defend!

I can't conceive a little dear

With the "Well-Wisher" in her hand!(40)

I ask, all ye who poets are,

Is it not true? the objects fair,

To whom ye for unnumbered crimes

Had to compose in secret rhymes,

To whom your hearts were consecrate, -

Did they not all the Russian tongue

With little knowledge and that wrong

In charming fashion mutilate?

Did not their lips with foreign speech

The native Russian tongue impeach?

[Note 40: The "Blago-Namierenni," or "Well-Wisher," was an inferior Russian newspaper of the day, much scoffed at by contemporaries. The editor once excused himself for some gross error by pleading that he had been "on the loose."]

XXX.

God grant I meet not at a ball

Or at a promenade mayhap,

A schoolmaster in yellow shawl

Or a professor in tulle cap.

As rosy lips without a smile,

The Russian language I deem vile

Without grammatical mistakes.

May be, and this my terror wakes,

The fair of the next generation,

As every journal now entreats,

Will teach grammatical conceits,

Introduce verse in conversation.

But I - what is all this to me?

Will to the old times faithful be.

XXXI.

Speech careless, incorrect, but soft,

With inexact pronunciation

Raises within my breast as oft

As formerly much agitation.

Repentance wields not now her spell

And gallicisms I love as well