I love you, though I rage at it, Though it is shame and toil misguided, And to my folly self-derided Here at your feet I will admit! It ill befits my years, my station, Good sense has long been overdue! And yet, by every indication Love's plague has stricken me anew: You're out of sight---I fall to yawning; You're here---I suffer and feel blue, And barely keep myself from owning, Dear elf, how much I care for you! Why, when your guileless girlish chatter Drifts from next door your airy tread, Your rustling dress, my senses scatter And I completely lose my head. You smile---I flush with exultation; You turn away---I'm plunged in gloom, Your pallid hand is compensation For a whole day of fancied doom. When to the frame with artless motion You bend to cross-stitch, all devotion, Your eyes and ringlets down-beguiled, My heart goes out in mute emotion, Rejoicing in you like a child! Dare I confess to you my sighing, How jealously I chafe and balk When you set forth, defying Bad weather, on a lengthy walk? And then your solitary crying, Those twosome whispers out of sight, Your carriage to Opochka plying, And the piano late at night... Aline! I ask but to be pitied, I do not dare to plead for love; Love, for the sins I have committed, I am perhaps unworthy of. But make believe! Your gaze, dear elf, Is fit to conjure with, believe me! Ah, it is easy to deceive me!... I long to be deceived myself!
