Page:Poems, Alexander Pushkin, 1888.djvu/76

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70
Poems: Autobiographical.

REMINISCENCE.

IV. 96.

When noisy day to mortals quiet grows,
And upon the city's silent walls
Night's shadow half-transparent lies,
And Sleep, of daily toils reward,—
Then for me are dragging in the silence
Of wearying wakefulness the hours.
In the sloth of night more scorching burn
My heart's serpents' gnawing fangs;
Boil my thoughts; my soul with grief oppressed
Full of reveries sad is thronged.
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 craziness of ruinous license,
In thraldom, poverty, and homeless deserts

My wasted years there I behold.