Eugene Onegin ( without commentary )

196
Chapter Four
XXXII

But soft! You hear? A critic stern commands us to throw off the sorry wreath of elegies; and to our brotherhood of rhymesters cries: " Do stop whimpering and croaking always the same thing, regretting 'the foregone, the past'; enough! Sing about something else!" – You're right, and surely you'll point out to us the trumpet, mask, and dagger, and everywhence a dead stock of ideas bid us revive. Thus friend?-uNowise! Far from it! Write odes, gentlemen,