Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse by Alexander Pushkin

“How sad that youth, with all its power,Was given us in vain, to burn;That we betrayed it every hour;And were deceived by it in turn;That all our finest aspirations,Our brightest dreams and inspirations,Have withered with each passing dayLike leaves dank autumn rots away.It's hard to face a long successionOf dinners stretching out of sight,To look at life as at a rite,And trail the seemly crowd's procession—Indifferent to the views they hold,And to their passions ever cold.”

(Chapter 8, XI)