Eugene Onegin ( without commentary )

XXVII

I know: some would make ladies read Russian. Horrible indeed!

Can I image them 4 with The Well-Meaner21 in their hands? My poets, I appeal to you! Is it not true that the sweet objects for whom, to expiate your sins, 8 in secret you wrote verses, to whom your hearts you dedicateddid not they all, wielding the Russian language poorly, and with difficulty, 12 so sweetly garble it, and on their lips did not a foreign language become a native one?