I loved you: yet the love, maybe,
Has not extinguished in my heart;
But hence may not it trouble thee;
I do not want to make you sad.
I loved you hopelessly and mutely,
Now with shyness, now with jealousy being vexed;
I loved you so sincerely, so fondly,
Likewise may someone love you next.
~Alexander Pushkin
Pushkin was the writer that heavily influenced Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky. I vaguely realized he was a poet but for some reason I was thinking he mainly wrote novels. I decided to check him out and this was the first poem that popped up. I read it and laughed, because it is SO Russian. While I might enjoy the melancholia of the Russian writers, boy am I glad I don't have to live like that.
You know, I'm never going to have to write a poem like this and I am incredibly thankful for that. Mrs B was not shy about her feelings for me when we met and now seventeen years later, she loves me just as much. My own feelings have grown in depth too. Seeing what Pushkin wrote just makes me that much more appreciative of what I have been blessed with.
