Status Updates From Eugene Onegin

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!

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."

"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!"

As unreflecting and unfading
As life's young pulse that never halts,…

"Allurement's phial that I adored,
Drunk with the wine of love you poured!"

"But pity him who's all-foreseeing—
His is a head that never spins;
To him all words and acts are sins
On every level of their being:
By too much life his heart's been chilled;
His lust for life's been all but killed."

"Each has his own preoccupation,
Each has his favorite avocation:
One tilts arms at loons in the sky,
One finds charms in rhymes (that one's I),
One with a swatter horseflies squishes,
One gags the crowd with laws galore,
One laughs aloud while waging war,
One basks in bed with wistful wishes,
One is a connoisseur of wine:
And Good and Evil thus entwine."

"Yes, each and every friend and foe
(Between the two the line's quite hazy)
Attacked him, racked him, right and left.
We're none of us of foes bereft,
But Lord, protect us from our crazy
Cabal of friends! Yes, friends, let's cheer:
For duly you're remembered here!"

"Is this to be your lifelong plight,
By fate predestined, out of spite?"

"In all this world, what's more depressing
Than families where the suff'ring wife
is always—all alone—expressing
Despair about her married life?
And where her boring mate, despite her
Clear virtues, damns his fate?"