Dreaming herself the heroine

      Of the romances she preferred,

      Clarissa, Julia, Delphine[29], —

      Tattiana through the forest erred,

      And the bad book accompanies.

      Upon those pages she descries

      Her passion’s faithful counterpart,

      Fruit of the yearnings of the heart.

      She heaves a sigh and deep intent

      On raptures, sorrows not her own,

      She murmurs in an undertone

      A letter for her hero meant:

      That hero, though his merit shone,

      Was certainly no Grandison.

      Alas! my friends, the years flit by

      And after them at headlong pace

      The evanescent fashions fly

      In motley and amusing chase.

      The world is ever altering!

      Farthingales, patches, were the thing,

      And courtier, fop, and usurer

      Would once in powdered wig appear;

      Time was, the poet’s tender quill

      In hopes of everlasting fame

      A finished madrigal would frame

      Or couplets more ingenious still;

      Time was, a valiant general might

      Serve who could neither read nor write.

      Time was, in style magniloquent

      Authors replete with sacred fire

      Their heroes used to represent

      All that perfection could desire;

      Ever by adverse fate oppressed,

      Their idols they were wont to invest

      With intellect, a taste refined,

      And handsome countenance combined,

      A heart wherein pure passion burnt;

      The excited hero in a trice

      Was ready for self-sacrifice,

      And in the final tome we learnt,

      Vice had due punishment awarded,

      Virtue was with a bride rewarded.

      But now our minds are mystified

      And Virtue acts as a narcotic,

      Vice in romance is glorified

      And triumphs in career erotic.

      The monsters of the British Muse

      Deprive our schoolgirls of repose,

      The idols of their adoration

      A Vampire fond of meditation,

      Or Melmoth, gloomy wanderer he,

      The Eternal Jew or the Corsair

      Or the mysterious Sbogar.[30]

      Byron’s capricious phantasy

      Could in romantic mantle drape

      E’en hopeless egoism’s dark shape.

      My friends, what means this odd digression?

      May be that I by heaven’s decrees

      Shall abdicate the bard’s profession,

      And shall adopt some new caprice.

      Thus having braved Apollo’s rage

      With humble prose I’ll fill my page

      And a romance in ancient style

      Shall my declining years beguile;

      Nor shall my pen paint terribly

      The torment born of crime unseen,

      But shall depict the touching scene

      Of Russian domesticity;

      I will descant on love’s sweet dream,

      The olden time shall be my theme.

      Old people’s simple conversations

      My unpretending page shall fill,

      Their offspring’s innocent flirtations

      By the old lime-tree or the rill,

      Their Jealousy and separation

      And tears of reconciliation:

      Fresh cause of quarrel then I’ll find,

      But finally in wedlock bind.

      The passionate speeches I’ll repeat,

      Accents of rapture or despair

      I uttered to my lady fair

      Long ago, prostrate at her feet.

      Then they came easily enow,

      My tongue is somewhat rusty now.

      Tattiana! sweet Tattiana, see!

      What bitter tears with thee I shed!

      Thou hast resigned thy destiny

      Unto a ruthless tyrant dread.

      Thou’lt suffer, dearest, but before,

      Hope with her fascinating power

      To dire contentment shall give birth

      And thou shalt taste the joys of earth.

      Thou’lt quaff love’s sweet envenomed stream,

      Fantastic images shall swarm

      In thy imagination warm,

      Of happy meetings thou shalt dream,

      And wheresoe’er thy footsteps err,

      Confront thy fated torturer!

      Love’s pangs Tattiana agonize.

      She seeks the garden in her need —

      Sudden she stops, casts down her eyes

      And cares not farther to proceed;

      Her bosom heaves whilst crimson hues

      With sudden flush her cheeks suffuse,

      Barely to draw her breath she seems,

      Her eye with fire unwonted gleams.

      And now ’tis night, the guardian moon

      Sails her allotted course on high,

      And from the misty woodland