Eugene Onegin

"Tomorrow too will be the same."

"All poets, I need hardly mention,
have drawn from the love abundant themes;
I too have gazed in rapt attention
When cherished beings filled my dreams.
My soul preserved their secret features;
The Muse then made them living creatures.
Just so in carefree song I paid
My tribute to the mountain maid,
And sang the Salghir Captives' praises.
And now, my friends, I hear once more
That question you have put before;
'For whom these sighs your lyre raises?
To whom amid the jealous throng
Do you today devote your song?

Whose gaze, evoking inspiration,
Rewards you with soft caress?
Whose form, in pensive adoration,
Do you now clothe in sacred dress?'
Why no one, friends, as God's my witness,
And maddened pangs of love's refrain
Oh, blest is he who joins his pain
To fevered rhyme: for thus he doubles
The sacred ecstasy of art;
Like Petrarch then, he calms the heart,
Subduing passion's host of troubles,
And captures worldly fame to boot!-
But I, in love, was dense and mute.

The Muse appeared as love was ending
And cleared the darkened mind she found.
One, free, I seek again the blending
Of feeling, thought, and magic sound.
I write...and want no more embraces,
My straying pen no longer traces,
Beneath a verse left incomplete ,
The shape of ladies' heads and feet.
Extinguished ashes won't rekindle,
And though I grieve, I weep no more;
And soon, quite soon, the tempest's core
Within my soul will fade and dwindle:
And then I'll write this world a song
That's five and twenty cantons long!"

The personification of the Muse is marvelous here... "The sacred ecstasy of art"- The true worshipers! One is to suffer and strip himself completely- then he is able to truly write.

"And found the source of lyrics fire
Beneath the skies of distant lands,
From Goethe's and from Schiller's hands."

Such creation these masters produce in our minds...

"He sang of love, by love commended,
A simple and affecting tune,
As clear as maiden thoughts, as candid
As Infant slumber, as the moon
In heaven's peaceful desert flying,
That queen of secrets and of sighing.
He sang of parting and of pain,
Of something vague, of mists and rain;
He sang the rose, romantic flower,
And distant lands where once he'd shed
His living tears upon the bed
Of silence at a lonely hour;
He sang life's bloom gone pale and sere-
He'd almost reached his eighteenth year."

Song of humanity, sung by a true poet. He sings it in such a mournful tone... It's marvelous how he defines this vagueness of "mists and rain"- how pain is to be found in such vague things...

"We all take on Napoleon's features,
And millions of our fellow creatures
Are nothing more to us than tools
Since feelings are for freaks and fools."

Reminds me of something Gogol wrote- saying that Napoleon was the anti-Christ... Hilarious.

"Upon her balcony appearing,
She loved to greet Arora's show,
When dancing stars are disappearing
Against the heaven's pallid glow,
When earth's horizon softly blushes,
And wind, the morning's herald, rushes
And slowly day begins its flight.
In winter, when the shade of night
Still longer half the glove encumbers,
And near the misty moon on high
An idle stillness rules the sky,
And late the lazy East still slumbers."

"Long since her keen imagination,
With tenderness and pain imbued,
Had hungered for the fatal food;
Long since her heart's sweet agitation
Had choked her maiden breast too much:
Her soul awaited someone's touch."

You see how delicately he addresses the most sensitive point in a woman's life? How gently he touches it and admires it?

"Tatyana, O my dear Tatyana!
I shed with you sweet tears too late,
Relying on a tyrant's honour,
you're now resigned to him your fate
My dear one, you are doomed to perish;
But first in dazzling hope you nourish
And summon forth a somber bliss,
You learn life's sweetness...feel its kiss,
And drink the droughts of love's temptations,
As phantom daydreams haunt your mind:
On every side you seem to find
Retreats for happy assignations,
While everywhere before your eyes
Your fateful tempter's figure lies."

This if phenomenal. It's immortal.

************
"But whom to love? To trust and treasure?
Who won't betray us in the end?
And who'll be kind enough to measure
Our words and deeds as we intent?
Who won't sow slander all about us?
To whom will all our faults be few?
Who'll never bore us through and through?
You futile, searching phantom-breeder,
Why spend your efforts all in vain,
Just love yourself and ease the pain,
My most esteemed and valued reader!
A worthy object! Nevermind,
A truer love you'll never find!"

This verse I memorized... This is the ultimate question of mankind. Whom to love and whom to trust... Phantom-breeder says SO much in this passage-- it distinguishes the melancholy from the optimists... It is as if Pushkin mocks the melancholy, because that is what they DON'T need- more of themselves...

"Perhaps in thought we reassemble,
Within a dream to which we cling,
Some other and more ancient spring,
That sets the aching heart atremble
With visions of some distant place,
A magic night, the moon's embrace..."

Distant place...distant realm. It is as if we are more alive in our thought...

"He got so lost in his depression,
He just about went mad, I fear,
Or else turned poet, (an obsession that I'd be the first to cheer!)"

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I almost cried. How beautiful, and oh so sad. It shows that life moves on, and Fate can be so cruel, so heartless. No matter what it does to the victims, it's still silent and moves on. Love, passion, no matter. All will soon pass, given the right opportunities. She married, he was left alone in his depression for ever.

Most romantic poetry I've ever and will probably read. I really can't image better. Pushkin is the ultimate Poet. He says everything so incredibly delicately and fine... And with such a personality- such humor. Turgenev and Gogol all combined into one...

Also seems like a very good translation:

http://www.stihi.ru/2004/04/16-1484