In 1850, he began an illicit affair with Elena Denisyeva, over twenty years his junior. She remained his mistress until her death from tuberculosis in 1864, and she bore him three children. The affair produced a body of lyrics rightly considered among the finest love poems in the language. Permeated with a sublime feeling of subdued despair, the so-called "Denisyeva Cycle" has been variously described by critics as "a novel in verse", "a human document, shattering in the force of its emotion", and "a few songs without comparison in Russian, perhaps even in world poetry". One of the poems, "Last Love", is often cited as emblematic of the whole cycle.