A heavy goose on scarlet feet,

Thinking to float upon the stream,

Descends the bank with care extreme,

But staggers, slips, and falls. We greet

The first bright wreathing storm of snow

Which falls in starry flakes below.

XXXIII.

How in the country pass this time?

Walking? The landscape tires the eye

In winter by its blank and dim

And naked uniformity.

On horseback gallop o'er the steppe!

Your steed, though rough-shod, cannot keep

His footing on the treacherous rime

And may fall headlong any time.

Alone beneath your rooftree stay

And read De Pradt or Walter Scott!(47)

Keep your accounts! You'd rather not?

Then get mad drunk or wroth; the day

Will pass; the same to-morrow try -

You'll spend your winter famously!

[Note 47: The Abbe de Pradt: b. 1759, d. 1837. A political pamphleteer of the French Revolution: was at first an emigre, but made his peace with Napoleon and was appointed Archbishop of Malines.]

XXXIV.

A true Childe Harold my Eugene

To idle musing was a prey;

At morn an icy bath within

He sat, and then the livelong day,

Alone within his habitation

And buried deep in meditation,

He round the billiard-table stalked,

The balls impelled, the blunt cue chalked;

When evening o'er the landscape looms,

Billiards abandoned, cue forgot,

A table to the fire is brought,

And he waits dinner. Lenski comes,

Driving abreast three horses gray.