prevented from contaminating with its corpse the life of the future. And his regret is bitter enough. In the first of the two poems, "Regret" and "Reminiscence," the feeling again is as yet only discernment; but in the second, the poison has already entered his soul, and accordingly it no longer is a song, but a cry of agony....
At first it is is only—
"But where are ye, О moments tender
Of young my hopes, of heartfelt peace?
The former heat and grace of inspiration?
Come again, О ye, of spring my years!"
But later it becomes—
"Before me memory in silence
Its lengthy roll unfolds,
And with disgust my life I reading
Tremble I and curse it.
Bitterly I moan, and bitterly my tears I shed
But wash away the lines of grief I cannot.
In laziness, in senseless feasts,
In the madness of ruinous license,
In thraldom, poverty, and homeless deserts
My wasted years there I behold...."
17. Regret, in itself a disease, but only of the intellect, soon changes into a more violent disease: into a disease of the constitution, which is fear, fear of insanity. In ordinary minds such disease takes the form of fear for
