Amid coquettes who pray to God

And abject slaves who kiss the rod;

In haunts of fashion where each day

All with urbanity betray,

Where harsh frivolity proclaims

Its cold unfeeling sentences;

Amid the awful emptiness

Of conversation, thought and aims -

In that morass where you and I

Wallow, my friends, in company!

CANTO THE SEVENTH.

Moscow Moscow, Russia's darling daughter,

Where thine equal shall we find?'

Dmitrieff

Who can help loving mother Moscow?

Baratynski (Feasts)

A journey to Moscow! To see the world!

Where better?

Where man is not.

Griboyedoff (Woe from Wit)

Canto The Seventh [Written 1827-1828 at Moscow, Mikhailovskoe, Saint Petersburg and Malinniki.]

I.

Impelled by Spring's dissolving beams,

The snows from off the hills around

Descended swift in turbid streams

And flooded all the level ground.

A smile from slumbering nature clear

Did seem to greet the youthful year;

The heavens shone in deeper blue,

The woods, still naked to the view,

Seemed in a haze of green embowered.

The bee forth from his cell of wax

Flew to collect his rural tax;

The valleys dried and gaily flowered;

Herds low, and under night's dark veil