Her sister bore the name Tatyana.
And we now press our wilful claim
To be the first who thus shall honour
A tender novel with that name.
Why not? I like its intonation;
It has, I know, association
With olden days beyond recall,
With humble roots and servants' hall;
But we must grant, though it offend us:
Our taste in names is less than weak
(Of verses I won't even speak);
Enlightenment has failed to mend us,
And all we've learned from its great store
Is affectation - nothing more.

So she was called Tatyana, reader.
She lacked that fresh and rosy tone
That made her sister's beauty sweeter
And drew all eyes to her alone.
A wild creature, sad and pensive,
Shy as a doe and apprehensive,
Tatyana seemed among her kin
A stranger who had wandered in.
She never learned to show affection,
To hug her parents - either one;
A child herself, for children's fun
She lacked the slightest predilection,
And oftentimes she'd sit all day
In silence at the window bay.

But pensiveness, her friend and treasure
Through all her years since cradle days,
Adorned the course of rural leisure
By bringing dreams before her gaze.
She never touched a fragile finger
To thread a needle, wouldn't linger
Above a tambour to enrich
A linen cloth with silken stitch.
Mark how the world compels submission:
The little girl with docile doll
Prepares in play for protocol,
For every social admonition;
And to her doll, without demur,
Repeats what mama taught to her.

But dolls were never Tahya's passion,
When she was small she didn't choose
To talk to them of clothes or fashion
Or tell them all the city news.
And she was not the sort who glories
In girlish pranks; but grisly stories
Quite charmed her heart when they were told
On winter nights all dark and cold.
Whenever nanny brought together
Young Olga's friends to spend the day,
Tatyana never joined their play
Or games of tag upon the heather;
For she was bored by all their noise,
Their laughing shouts and giddy joys.

Upon her balcony appearing,
She loved to greet Aurora's show,
When dancing stars are disappearing
Against the heavens' pallid glow,
When earth's horizon softly blushes,
And wind, the morning's herald, rushes,
And slowly day begins its flight.
In winter, when the shade of night
Still longer half the globe encumbers,
And 'neath the misty moon on high
An idle stillness rules the sky,
And late the lazy East still slumbers -
Awakened early none the less,
By candlelight she'd rise and dress.

From early youth she read romances,
And novels set her heart aglow;
She loved the fictions and the fancies
Of Richardson and of Rousseau.
Her father was a kindly fellow -
Lost in a past he found more mellow;
But still, in books he saw no harm,
And, though immune to reading's charm,
Deemed it a minor peccadillo;
Nor did he care what secret tome
His daughter read or kept at home
Asleep till morn beneath her pillow...