Elegy, by Aleksandre Sergeevich Pushkin 1799-1837

Of my mad years the vanished mirth and laughter

Affect me like a fume-filled morning-after.
Not so past pain – like wine is it to me
That as the years go by gains potency.
Sad is the path before me: toil and sorrow
Lie on the restless seaways of the morrow.

And yet from thought of death, my friends, I shrink;
I want to live – to suffer and to think,
And amid care and grief and tribulation,
Taste of sweet rapture and exhilaration;
Be drunk with harmony; touch fancy’s strings
And freely weep o’er its imaginings…
And love’s last flash, its smile of farewell tender
My sad decline may yet less mournful render. 1830