Eugene Onegin ( without commentary )

XVIII

When we have flocked under the banner of sage tranquillity, when the flame of the passions has gone out 4 and laughable become to us their waywardness or surgings and belated echoes; reduced to sense not without trouble, 8 sometimes we like to listen to the tumultuous language of the passions of others, and it stirs our heart; exactly thus an old disabled soldier 12 does willingly bend an assiduous ear to the yarns of young mustached braves, [while he remains] forgotten in his shack.