puskin

Past love

I loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain…
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness—though in vain—
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.
—”I Loved You,” Alexander Sergeyevich Puskin (1799–1837)
Published in 1830, this Russian poem expresses both respect and devotion toward a former love. Pushkin, who is often regarded as Russia’s greatest poet, wrote in an autobiographical style that captured the rather tumultuous episodes of his love life. His seminal work, Eugene Onegin, even foreshadowed his own death in a duel against an admirer of his wife, Natalia. Find out how these real couples knew they’d found “the one.”