Epilogue Ruslan and Ludmila Pushkin's poems for children

Thus, the world's mindless dweller, spending
Life's precious hours in idle peace,
Its strings my lyre to me lending,
I sang the lore of bygone days.
I sang, the painful blows forgetting
Of fate that blindly o'er us rules,
The wiles of frivolous maids, the petty
And thoughtless jibes of prating fools.
My mind, on wings of fancy soaring,
To parts ethereal was borne,
While all unknown there gathered o'er me
The dark clouds of a mighty storm....
And I was lost.... But vou who always
Watched o'er me in my earlier years,
You, blessed friendship, giving solace
To one whose heart deep sorrow sears!-
You calmed the raging storm, and, heeding
M\ spirit's call, brought peace to me;
You saved me-saved my treasured freedom,
Of fiery youth the deity!
Far from the social whirl, the Neva
Behind me left, forgotten even
By rumour, here am I where loom
Caucasian peaks in prideful gloom.
Atop high steeps, mid downward tumbling
Cascades and cataracts of stone,
I stand and drink it all in dumbly,
And revel, to reflection prone,
In nature's dark and savage beauty;
To wounding thought my soul's still wed,
Within it sadness lives, deep-rooted,
But the poetic fires are dead,

In vain I seek for inspiration:
Gone is the blithe and happy time
Of love, of merry dreams, of rhyme,
Of all that filled me with elation.
Sweet rapture's span has not been long,
Flown from me has the Muse of song,
Of softly spoken incantation....