Rex’s Reviews > Eugene Onegin > Status Update

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”

"I'll just remark, my verses talk
as much of banquets and the cork
and eatables beyond all classing
as yours did. Homer, godlike lord,
Whom thirty centuries have adored!"

"Happy a hundredfold, whoever
can lean on faith, who can dismiss
cold reason, sleep in sensual welter
like a drunk traveler in a shelter,
or, sweeter, like a butterfly
in flowers of spring it's drinking dry;
but piteous he, the all-foreseeing,
the sober head, detesting each
human reaction, every speech
in the expression of its being,
whose heart experience has cooled
and saved from being charmed or fooled!"

"We each enjoy a special hobby,
each of us has his favorite lobby:
one sees a duck and aims his gun,
one raves in verse like me, and one
hunts cheeky flies, with swatter sweeping,
one leads the multitude in thought,
one finds in war amusing sport,
one wallows in delicious weeping;
the wine-addict adores the cup:
and good and bad are all mixed up."

"…Just let yourself be your whole care,
your loved one, honorable reader!
Deserving object: there can be
nothing more lovable than he."

"Whom then to credit? Whom to treasure?
On whom alone can we depend?
Who is there who will truly measure
his acts and words to suit our end?
Who'll sow no calumnies around us?
Whose fond attentions will astound us?
Who'll never fault our vices, or
whom shall we never find a bore?
Don't let a ghost be your bear-leader,
don't waste your efforts on the air.
Just let yourself be your whole care,
your loved one…"