To you my book of verses I confide
To P. A. Pletnev and F. I. Tyutchev
To you, twin peers out of that pleiad blest,
Where I played once my party among the rest,
Preservers of the taste, the views, the ties
In which our circle started and grew wise,
Un blushing, yet not boldly satisfied,
To you my book of verses I confide.
Whatever pressures moved my mind or heart,
The fleeting gleams which in bright colors start
When Inspiration's hour in dreams appears,
What moved my mind to laughter, what to tears,
The genial fits, delusions and mistakes,
The unmeant faults that human frailty makes,
Things somewhat prized, yet as no partisan,
All that my mind or feelings chanced upon,
The good thing loved, the loathed escapade,
My whole confession, all of me betrayed,
You are to read in me perfidious book.
Rough numbers rise where you, my judges, look,
The wilful word, the sense ofr stress to gloze,
Harsh turns, and in the stanzas tags of prose.
Spare no regret nor blame, but still be hard;
From little sound the much corrupt discard.
But seek the man behind the bard to ken,
Redeem the pang from the defaulting pen.
Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky