Page:Poems, Alexander Pushkin, 1888.djvu/171

Rh [DEATH-THOUGHTS.]

I roam along the noisy streets

Whether I enter the peopled temple,

Whether I sit by thoughtless youth,

Haunt my thoughts me everywhere.

I say, Swiftly go the years by:

However great our number now,

Must all descend the eternal vaults,—

Already struck has some one's hour.

And if I gaze upon the lonely oak

I think: the patriarch of the woods

Will survive my passing age

As he survived my father's age.

And if a tender babe I fondle

Already I mutter, Fare thee well!

I yield my place to thee. For me

'T is time to decay, to bloom for thee