Onegin

XI

Yet Tanya's note made its impression
     on Eugene, he was deeply stirred:
     that virgin dream and its confession
     filled him with thoughts that swarmed and whirred;
     the flower-like pallor of the maiden,
     her look, so sweetly sorrow-laden,
     all plunged his soul deep in the stream
     of a delicious, guiltless dream...
     and though perhaps old fires were thrusting
     and held him briefly in their sway,
     Eugene had no wish to betray
     a soul so innocent, so trusting.
     But to the garden, to the scene
     where Tanya now confronts Eugene.

        XII

     Moments of silence, quite unbroken;
     then, stepping nearer, Eugene said:
     ``You wrote to me, and nothing spoken
     can disavow that. I have read
     those words where love, without condition,
     pours out its guiltless frank admission,
     and your sincerity of thought
     is dear to me, for it has brought
     feeling to what had long been heartless:
     but I won't praise you -- let me join
     and pay my debt in the same coin
     with an avowal just as artless;
     hear my confession as I stand
     I leave the verdict in your hand.

        XIII

     ``Could I be happy circumscribing
     my life in a domestic plot;
     had fortune blest me by prescribing
     husband and father as my lot;
     could I accept for just a minute
     the homely scene, take pleasure in it --
     then I'd have looked for you alone
     to be the bride I'd call my own.
     Without romance, or false insistence,
     I'll say: with past ideals in view
     I would have chosen none but you
     as helpmeet in my sad existence,
     as gage of all things that were good,
     and been as happy... as I could!

        XIV

     ``But I was simply not intended
     for happiness -- that alien role.
     Should your perfections be expended
     in vain on my unworthy soul?
     Believe (as conscience is my warrant),
     wedlock for us would be abhorrent.
     I'd love you, but inside a day,
     with custom, love would fade away;
     your tears would flow -- but your emotion,
     your grief would fail to touch my heart,
     they'd just enrage it with their dart.
     What sort of roses, in your notion,
     would Hymen bring us -- blooms that might
     last many a day, and many a night!

        XV

     ``What in the world is more distressing
     than households where the wife must moan
     the unworthy husband through depressing
     daytimes and evenings passed alone?
     and where the husband, recognizing
     her worth (but anathematising
     his destiny) without a smile
     bursts with cold envy and with bile?
     For such am I.