A toast
(this holiday season/New Year's)
...To absent friends...
"Но те, которым в дружной встрече
Я строфы первые читал…
Иных уж нет, а те далече,
Как Сади некогда сказал.
Без них Онегин дорисован.
А та, с которой образован
Татьяны милый Идеал…
О много, много Рок отъял!
Блажен, кто праздник Жизни рано
Оставил, не допив до дна
Бокала полного вина,
Кто не дочел Ее романа
И вдруг умел расстаться с ним,
Как я с Онегиным моим.".
"But those, to whom, at an amicable gathering
I had been reading the first verses of my book...
Some are no more, and others are far away,
As Saadi had once remarked.
I finished sketching Onegin without them,
And she, from whose pattern
The lovely image of Tatyana was formed...
Oh, how much, how much has Fate taken away!
Blessed is he who left the feast of Life
Early, not drinking the full glass of wine
To the the lees,
Who hadn't finished reading Her Novel
And was able to part with it suddenly,
As I part with my Onegin."
(Pushkin, the last lines of his novel in verse "Eugene Onegin")
[and no, I don't quite agree, but I thought it might interest some of you to see the full quote. It was the first four lines that I was really thinking of.]