Alexander Pushkin — Confession

I love you, though I rage at it,

Though it is shame and toil misguided,

And to my folly self-derided

Here at your feet I will admit!

It ill befits my years, my station,

Good sense has long been overdue!

And yet, by every indication

Love’s plague has stricken me anew:

You’re out of sight — I fall to yawning;

You’re here — I suffer and feel blue,

And barely keep myself from owning,

Dear elf, how much I care for you!

Why, when your guileless girlish chatter

Drifts from next door your airy tread,

Your rustling dress, my senses scatter

And I completely lose my head.

You smile — I flush with exultation;

You turn away- I’m plunged in gloom,

Your pallid hand is compensation

For a whole day of fancied doom.

When to the frame with artless motion

You bend to cross-stitch, all devotion,

Your eyes and ringlets down-beguiled,

My heart goes out in mute emotion,

Rejoicing in you like a child!

Dare I confess to you my sighing,

How jealously I chafe and balk

When you set forth, defying

Bad weather, on a lengthy walk?

And then your solitary crying,

Those twosome whispers out of sight,

Your carriage to Opochka plying,

And the piano late at night…

Aline! I ask but to be pitied,

I do not dare to plead for love;

Love, for the sins I have committed,

I am perhaps unworthy of.

But make believe! Your gaze, dear elf,

Is fit to conjure with, believe me!

Ah, it is easy to deceive me!…

I long to be deceived myself!.