Days when I came to flower serenely in Lycée gardens long ago, and read my Apuleius keenly, but spared no glance for Cicero. - Alexander Pushkin

It’s now the British Muse’s fables That lie on maidens’ bedside tables And haunt their dreams. They worship now The Vampire with his pensive brow,

Whom, then, to love? Whom to believe?
Who is the only one that won't betray us?
Who measures all deeds, all speeches
obligingly by our own foot rule?
Who does not sow slander about us?
Who coddles us with care?
To whom our vice is not so bad?
Who never bores us?
Unlike a futile phantom-seeker
who wastes effort in vain-
love your own self,
my honorworthy reader.
A worthy object! Nothing
more amiable surely exists.

But sad is he who lacks illusion, Whose head is steady, never stirred, Who hates each impulse, every word, Foreseeing always their conclusion; Whose heart experience has chilled, Whose urge to reverie is stilled.