By love intoxicated, Embarrassed by the tender shame,
Sometimes he dares like in game, By smile of Olga animated,
To play by her untwisted lock, To kiss the edge of Olga’s frock.
XXVI
Sometimes to Olga he is reading With morals novel for herself,
Whose author bolter nature’s feeling Than Chateaubriand does himself.
Meanwhile some two or three of pages (Some idle gibberish or fables,
But dangerous for the maiden’s heart) Quite reddenning he’s missing up.
They are alone far from people, Are playing at the board of chess,
On table leaning with slight press, Are sitting, lost in thought. a little,
And own pawn with own rook Distracted Lensky there took,
XXVII
When he’s at home, always there By Olga is he kept all day.
Of album leaflets with his care To decorate he works away;
In them he draws the country whole, The Kyprid’s temple, graves alone:
Or on the lyre draws a dove With pens and paints, with all his love;
Or on the leaves for recollections, Of other signatures beneath
His own tender verse he leaves Like monument to his affections,
Of instant thought some slight a trace, But of the same for years race.
XXVIII
Of course, for times you have been seeing A country maiden’s album big,
Which by the girl-friends had been scribbling From start, from end in any twig.
In it, in spite of rules of spelling Excessive verse, as they are telling,
As sign of friendship’s written in, Continued, lessened for the whim.
The first of leaflets just can show: Qu’ecrirez-vous sur ces tablettes;
It’s signed by t.a.v.
Annette; {10} And on the last one you read so:
Who loves you more than I can do Must here write a verse anew.
XXIX
Without fail you’ll find them here: Two hearts, the blooms, the torch’s rays;
You’ll find some vowes to the dear To love her until dying days.
Some poet from ranks of army Signed verse of villaine, though charming.
To such an album, being tight, If to confess, I’d like to write,
With all my soul being sure That any rubbish, done with zeal,
Will get some favourable deal, And afterwards they’ll not endure
Maliciously discuss with smiles: If I was sharp or dull in lies,
XXX
But uncoordinated volumes From devil’s library all got,
And albums perfect but enormous, Of stylish rhymers racking lot,
You all, whom decorated guickly Tolstoy with brush such wondrous, sweatily,
Or Baratinsky with his pen,- Let be you birnt by thunder then!
When some respiended dear lady To give in quatro me yet tries, {11}
I am engulfed by trembling vice: An epigram is being ready
At bottom of my soul fast... But give them madrigal at last!
XXXI
Not madrigals my Lensky’s writing In Olga’s album, and indeed
His pen with love is always sighing Without coolness of the wit:
He writes of all that he can hear Or see of Olga in the near,
And full of truth which he can meet His elegies like rivers fleet.
Thus you, Yazykov, always wrote {12} In gust of passion of your heart,