Alexander Pushkin

I've lived to see my longings die"I've lived to se my longings die:My dreams and I have grown apart;Now only sorrow haunts my eye,The wages of a bitter heart.Beneath the storms of hostile fate,My flowery wreath has faded fast;I live alone and sadly waitTo see when death will come at last.Just so, when the winds in winter moanAnd snow descends in frigid flakes,Upon a naked branch, alone,The final leaf of summer shakes!

I've lived to see my longings dieI've lived to see my longings die:My dreams and I have grown apart;Now only sorrow haunts my eye,The wages of a bitter heart.Beneath the storms of hostile fate,My flowery wreath has faded fast;I live alone and sadly waitTo see when death will come at last.Just so, when the winds in winter moanAnd snow descends in frigid flakes,Upon a naked branch, alone,The final leaf of summer shakes!...

I gaze forward without fear.

Ever peaceful be you slumberThough your days were few in numberOn this earth-spite took its toll-Yet shall heaven have your soulWith pure love we did regard youFor your loved one did we guard youBut you came not to the groomOnly to a chill dark tomb

God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Those who plot impossible upheavals among us, are either young and do not know our people, or are hard-hearted men who do not care a straw either about their own lives or those of others.

I have outlasted all desire,My dreams and I have grown apart;My grief alone is left entire,The gleamings of an empty heart.The storms of ruthless dispensationHave struck my flowery garland numb,I live in lonely desolationAnd wonder when my end will come.Thus on a naked tree-limb, blastedBy tardy winter's whistling chill,A single leaf which has outlastedIts season will be trembling still.

But flaming youth in all it's madnessKeeps nothing of its heart concealed:It's loves and hates, its joys and sadness,Are babbled out and soon revealed.

The noontide of my life is starting,Which I must needs accept, I know;But oh, my light youth, if we're parting,I want you as a friend to go!My thanks to you for the enjoyments,The sadness and the pleasant torments,The hubbub, storms, festivity,For all that you have given me;My thanks to you. I have delightedIn you when times were turbulent,When times were calm... to full extent;Enough now! With a soul clear-sightedI set out on another questAnd from my old life take a rest.Let me glance back. Farewell, you arboursWhere, in the backwoods, I recallDays filled with indolence and ardoursAnd dreaming of a pensive soul.And you, my youthful inspiration,Keep stirring my imagination,My heart's inertia vivify,More often to my corner fly.Let not a poet's soul be frozen,Made rough and hard, reduced to boneAnd finally be turned to stoneIn that benumbing world he goes in,In that intoxicating sloughWhere, friends, we bathe together now.

How sad, however, if we're givenOur youth as something to betray,And what if youth in turn is drivenTo cheat on us, each hour, each day,If our most precious aspirations,Our freshest dreams, imaginationsIn fast succession have decayed,As leaves, in putrid autumn, fade.It is too much to see before oneNothing but dinners in a row,Behind the seemly crowd to go,Regarding life as mere decorum,Having no common views to share,Nor passions that one might declare.

Love is for every age auspicious,But for the virginal and youngIts impulses are more propitiousLike vernal storms on meadows sprung:They freshen in the rain of passion,Ripening in their renovation __nd life, empowered, sends up shootsOf richest blooms and sweetest fruits.But at a late age, dry and fruitless,The final stage to which we__e led,Sad is the trace of passions dead:Thus storms in autumn, cold and ruthless,Transform the field into a slough,And strip the trees from root to bough.

Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

He who has lived and thought can neverHelp in his soul despising men,He who has felt will be foreverHaunted by days he can__ regain.For him there are no more enchantments,Him does the serpent of remembrance,Him does repentance always gnaw.All this will frequently affordA great delight to conversations.