Status Updates From Eugene Onegin: A Novel in V...

She hates this grand world's tumult, frankly.
It's stifling here...and, in a dream,
She sails away to field and stream,
Back to the backwoods' humble peasants,
Back to that lonely, tranquil nook
Where, bubbling, flows her lively brook;
Back to her books, her private pleasance…

This world's so vacuous that it's got
no spark of fun in all its rot!

Fare thee well, and if for ever,
Still for ever fare thee well.

— Byron

Muse of the epic, bless my work!
in my long task, be my upholder,
put a strong staff into my hand,
don't let me stray in paths unplanned.

📚♥️📚

Upon those books she turned her mind,
And finding them of curious kind,
She soon was all engrossed in reading,
An eager passage, door on door,
To worlds she never knew before.

The cold irony of this verse, in the contemporary zeitgeist, is not lost, when one reflects on Aleksandr Pushkin himself❗

💔💝👌

…True,
The poet's slain and gone; but who
Here in the world he left still felt it?
…
Like smoke into the sky and melted.
Two hearts, perhaps, for his sad lot
Were grieving still…grieving for what?

…Oblivion lonely
Awaits our shadows down below,
The tones of lover, friend, and foe
Are silenced all at once, and only
The angry heirs to our estate
Intone their scandalous debate.

Shall I confess my petty crime?
I chase the petticoats of rhyme

Oh, dreams, my dreams, where is your sweetness?
Oh, youth's (the rhyme fair beckons) fleetness!
Can it be really true at last,
Its lovely bloom is past, is past,

Thank you for all the gifts I treasure,
thank you for sorrow and for pleasure,
thank you for suffering and its joys,
for tempests and for feasts and noise;
thank you indeed. Alike in sorrow
and in flat calm I've found the stuff
of perfect bliss in you. Enough!

The poignant metaphors! 💓

A moment earlier, inspiration
had filled this heart, and detestation
and hope and passion; life had glowed
and blood had bubbled as it flowed;
but now the mansion is forsaken;
shutters are up, and all is pale
and still within, behind the veil
of chalk the window-panes have taken.
The lady of the house has fled.
Where to, God knows. The trail is dead.

What fate is my tomorrow brewing?
the answer's past all human viewing,
it's hidden deep in gloom and dust,
No matter; fate's decree is just.
Whether the arrow has my number,
whether it goes careering past,
all's well; the destined hour at last
comes for awakening, comes for slumber;
blessed are daytime's care and cark,
blest is the advent of the dark!

"'...True, scorn should punish and should bridle
his wit, according to the rules
but whispers, the guffaw of fools...'
Public opinion--here's our idol,
the spring of honor, and the pin
on which the world is doomed to spin."

“sed alia tempora! The devil …
goes out of us when youth is dead”

"Roué-in-chief and tavern plyer,
But now all kindness and well-bred,
A good papá, although unwed,
A faithful friend, a peaceful squire,
And even, lo, an honest man:
Such progress in a life's brief span!"

"But he was touched to see her churning,
And wordlessly, he gave a bow;
Yet something in his eyes somehow
Revealed a strangely tender numen.
Now, whether he was moved in truth,
Was teasing like some flirt uncouth,
Or simply showing he was human,
In any case his gaze expressed
Some warmth, and she felt less oppressed."