Oh Country
by Alexander Pushkin
I
The estate in which our bored Yevgeny
Now lived, was in fact a fine retreat:
There a lover of the simpler pleasures
Would thank the heavens for his fate.
His mansion house was solitary,
Sheltered by hills in windy weather,
And stood by a river. Stretching away
Far off the meadows were bright and gay
With flowers, and the cornfields golden.
And here was a hamlet, there another,
And cattle wandered the meadows at random,
While shade was cast both deep and wide
By a huge garden all overgrown,
For the pensive Dryads a secret home.
II
The stately mansion was built and planned
As all good mansions should really be:
Sturdily set in the peaceful land
In the refined taste of an age gone by.
All of the rooms were wide and lofty,
Silk wall paper embellished the drawing room,
And portraits of tsars hung on the walls,
The stoves were bright with ceramic tiles.
All this is nowadays somewhat passé,
Indeed, for what reason, I cannot say,
But of course for my friend, our story's hero
There was no need for these things at all,
Because he would yawn with equal distraction
At an ancient pile or a modern mansion.
III
He settled in the sitting room
Where the old-timer in his country ways
For forty years had gazed from the window
Or balled at the housekeeper, or swatted flies.
A simple room, with oaken floors,
Two cupboards, a table and a stuffed settee,
And not a single spot of ink.
Onegin opened the cupboard doors;
He found in one a book of expenses,
In another a shelf of home brewed brandy,
And apple water in an earthenware jar,
And from eighteen o eight a calendar.
The old man having such a busy life
Found that looking in books brought too much strife.
