Dreams!
CANZON XII.
Nem roxa flor de Abril,
(Her fresh young beauty compared with the Planets),
I.
Red Rose in April-reign
Painter of smiling field and coverture,
‘Mid other thousand tane,
Ne’er was so grateful gift to Damosel
Courteous and gay and belle,
Her mother’s care and boast, the pure of pure,
As to me showed that artless formosure
Nature so loves to lend her
That she makes Saturn in far sphere surrender.
II.
No rustick natural Spring
Untaught by excellent craftsman-hand to flow,
But by art-fashioning
Of Heaven derived from the rugged stone,
E’er so glad sight hath shown
To hunter panting in the noony glow,
As care in me did full contentment grow
When viewed that careless mien
Which ee’n can irous Jupiter serene.
III.
Fruit that sans training hand
Dependeth bounden to its natural place,
Which freak of Fortune fand
For him who sees it dyed blood-red, milk-white,
Ne’er dealt him such delight
As deals to me that unadulterate grace,
The brightest charm of beauty’s form and face,
That head-veil spuming art
Would turn to carlish herd the war-god Mart
IV.
The Morn who gracious glows
And rising rains from hyacinthine hair
Lily and daisy and rose,
Sans aid of ornamental artifice,
Ne’er shows so sweet device
As shows that splendid glow of eyen rare
To him who views them purely, ferly fair;
And innocent smiles suffice us;
Wherefore Apollo maketh Tage Amphrysus.
V.
The Mounts, whose kingly brows
Trees in their tangled holts and haughs o’erstrew
With round embowled boughs,
Glad growth no dextrous handiwork could train,
Grace of so lofty vein
Vaunt not in natural shades of verdant hue
As in these orbs so clear, so pure we view;
Large store of esperance
Love’s love and Venus’ venom to enhance.
The birdies’ simple song
A musick lacking trick of tone ‘and time,
The green ramáge among,
Ne’er sounds so sweet, nor brings him such delight
Who, ‘neath the treen night,
Hears it and wings his Sprite for higher clime,
As this sweet talking in mine ear doth chime,
This lore-light Nature-lit,
These wits that plunder Mercury’s wand and wit.
VII.
Freshets that freshest flow —
And from the forest-fount so clear derive
Tombling fro’ high cliff-brow,
And with their pearl-lets ‘namelling the green
Of tenderest shine and sheen,
And ‘scapes our sight, soft-murmuring, fugitive,
Ne’er gave such gladness as the Graces give
Stored in that sovereign light
Which rustick Dian hath a courtier dight.
L’ENVOI.
Seeing this light (Canzon! that durst so dare!)
All fall and prostrate wait
Saturnine Saturn, Jove of sprite irate
Fere Mars, fair-faxt Apollo, Venus fair,
And Mercury and Dian and every Sterre.
CANZON XIII.
O pomar venturoso!
(To an Orchard on the Zézéré River; with a chapel of the B. Virgin).
I.
Fair Vergier apple’d bright,
Where Nature-craft we see
With cunning human art at odds contend;
And in so sweet a site
Superior subtlety
Of Genius showst, nude charms withouten end!
No Judgment may pretend
(Be it blind, or high and rare)
To judge if greater part
Or Nature ’twas or Art
Or earth or heaven lent thee most of care;
For joys thy glad terrene
Joyaunce of purest air the most serene.
II.
In thy delicious weight
The Mount his pleasure showing,
Fends fro’ thy skirts Zezeré’s rushing waves,
So proud thou contemplate
His chrystal purely flowing
Which blent with Pera bounds thy feet and laves.
Thy painture hath such braves
That gar Apelles pale;
Enigmas intricate,
With myrtles animate
We see, which Scopas’ self to carve would fail
In thee with peace internal
An holy pleasure holdeth place eternal.
III.
The Garths of far-enfamed
Babel o’er earth besung
Be now a miracle by worlds unpraise’d!
Tho’ Glory’s voice proclaimed
Their hanging heights were hung
(Thus Antique Fame) in air unstable raise’d:
Nor any view amaze’d
Alcinous’ Paradise;
Nor pens that learning vaunt
Maecenas’ gardens chaunt,
Planter of peregrine humanities;
But whereso fly she, Fame
Speak of thee only and thy gifts proclaim.
IV.
For, if in olden term
Bright pomes of glowing gold
Deckt garths and orchards of the Hesperides;
And ‘spite the deadly Worm
(Their ward) alone the bold
Alcides daréd strip the dooming trees;
Thou with more power to please
Teachest the pure chaste Sprite
Her wished-for weal to win,
To fly foul envy-sin
(Those golden pomes! Time never bring them blight!)
In fine with charity
Conquering Hell to ope Eternity.
V.
Meanwhile of Aventure
By Time for thee foretracéd
Heaven grant thee Joyaunce which shall never wane;
That show thy scene so pure
With greater glory gracéd
A figured reflex of the Heavenly Reign;
That long as Heaven sustain
This globe of sea and land,
His grace of highest degree
His Noblest Mystery,
Which death and doom from mortal spirits bann’d,
Bide in our Souls ensoul’d
And with more palmy Palms more triumphs hold.
VI.
Then joy thou long unshent
The boons of favouring Fate,
Thy Maker’s Mother dealt, here fitly fane’d:
That aye with thee content
From Her sublime estate,
Joy to her servants’ souls and sents be deign’d;
And each and all be sain’d
For nobler qualities
Than Nestor, wisest wight;
That so the world shall sight.
Their years exceeding fabled centuries;
And with the longer Life
Endure their Memories in all honour rife.
L’ENVOI.
Canzon! sith more enfaméd
Ne’er by thy praise can be
This Mount’s delicious stations here proclaiméd;
Haply Love’s deity
Who giveth governance to thy numbered strain
For will to sing them Life eterne shall deign.
CANZON XIV.
Quem com solido intento
(An unfinished imitation of Luigi Groto, showing that like
Causes do not produce like Effect
s).
I.
Whoso with stable mind
Woos Nature and in Nature’s mystery wise is
All lore that Athens prizes,
Cast he to furious wave and fickle wind:
To forge my pains and bind,
A new Philosophy,
Born of experience, Amor to me taught
From laws of antique Time it fares distraught;
For Love and Nature disagree in me;
Hence schools of sages never could attest
In subject Nature-made,
What lofty grade Love oped in my breast
II.
Birds winnow air serene,
The herds of Proteus in the waters thrive;
And men are born to live
Within this world, a world so meanly mean:
Me all things inconvene
In all I bide reparted;
My mouth’s in air; my wit on earth is cast:
Love fills the first and Fancy feeds the last;
My heart consumes with flames for aye enhearted
But from these eyelids tear-floods ever flowing
Have workings so contráyr
In hostile humour flare the flames still growing.
III.
Love erst through eyen-sight
Of Lovers’ hearts the gateway safest gain’d:
That Law now lies prophane’d;
For whenas shone those eyne my heart to smite,
I loved an unseen sight,
And like the Spingard’s flash
I saw Love’s figure ere his cause was seen.
Whoso Desire with Hope would link in lien
Blind guide he blindly takes, a low vile lache,
But in this soul exempt from worldly law,
I see Hope lying dead
Thus bides Desire in stead new life to draw.
A diamant-heart, a breast of steely plate:
Who raveneth for my blood while I would sate
With fiercest death-throes her inhuman thirst:
This wise, in all things utterly different,
Whither Fate lead I run
And if by Death undone I die content.
V.
Falls he in worse defect
Who deemeth Science certain and secure,
That manifest Cause be sure
Aye to engender self-conformed Effect.
Won me one dight and deckt
With charms, whose maiden snow,
Reviving fires internal burns me alive:
For this my Fair one, fere and fugitive,
Snow gi’en she be, is surely fieriest lowe:
Whence I infer secure (and cease the phrase
Vain, lightsome, lie-begot)
Snow sometimes melted not in flames that blaze
Love, with his nightly thought, his dreaming day
And, when Apollo leaves the sunshine-way,
In sombrest shades I view that Nymph divine.
Then if sans daylight Love his eyesight feed
Blind! whoso holds untrue
Night’s blackest hue can course of Love impede.
VII.
Erreth who overbold
Preacheth the Part be greater than his Whole:
Love so enholds my Soul,
That in a Soul of mine I bide ensoul’d:
From boast so brave is bred
The dread of losing Her:
And, albe fear to many a heart that sinks
Depaint in phantasy Chimaera and Sphinx
Of future evils hostile stars may stir,
I see in self, for secret yet unknown,
When ‘joy I most content,
Only from welfare hent is terror grown.
In this my tormentize so hard, so coy,
I live to ‘noyance and I die to joy;
And live my Senses when my Soul’s no more,
That full assurance feel my parted Sprite
Combine, for painfuller paining,
Parting, Remaining, Life with Death unite.
L’ENVOI.
Wherefore, Canzon! infer I and believe
That or all wonted form be disarranged
In Nature’s firmest law,
Or that my Nature saw its shape all changed.
CANZON XV.
Ine he isto? Sonho? On vejo a Ninfa pura,
(Platonic: Of a Dream and its waking).
I.
What? Do I dream? Of see that Nymph all-pure
Ever in soul I see?
Or limns Desire for me
The weal each hour all vainly would secure?
Ill can the night’s Obscure,
Loving cold sombre shade,
Send me in fairest dreams that clearest Light
Which shall not day be made
By power of glancing rays wi’ radiance fired.
O loved Sight long desired
O’ that douce Nymph, that Star enquickening sight!
Long o’er this Ocean have I steered my barque,
(Sans look of lodestar) voyage drear and dark.
The surest way you espied
The highmost height to view,
And Cause of this Effect you showed my soul.
Thus Beauty’s mortal hue
Born from Above its seat Above resumes;
Thus lights which Heaven illumes
There from the skies derive, there seek their goal:
Then, as such vision can with God unite me
Why, O my Soul! to this your Soul deny’t me?
III.
An would you lead me prisoner part by part
Fair-faxed wavy Hair!
Web me the golden snare
Wherein dipt Vulcan Cypria and her Mart.
And sith your gentle art
Robeth in bloomy sheen
Earth where your delicate sole vouchsafes to tread,
How oft, these marvels seen,
I wisht me a flower ‘mid these flowers grown?
For, seeing me trodden down
By the white feet that make the snow blush red,
Haply mote I transform me to the flower
Wherewith fair Flora cooled fere Juno’s stowre.
IV.
But where (O dear Life mine!) where be thou fled
Lighter and fleeter than
In shady glade e’er ran
The Hind by hurt of gridéd arrow sped!
An for such Parting dread
Mine Eyes! ye oped to light,
May everlastingest sleep your eyelids close,
Ere that such blight ye sights
Losing that lovely, so beloved a snare!
Now to my deep despair
You sight full clearly for increase of woes
In this light vision, fugitive relief,
There be no longer Ill than Weal so brief.
V.
Happy Endymion, whom the Deess dear
Who guides the nightly race
Enclaspt in dream-embrace!
Ah! who fro’ Dream so sweet to wake would care?
Sole thou, Aurore avare,
Whenas thou smotst my sight,
Cruel! couldst victim me for envy pure.
But an fro’ this sad sprite
Hope willed thee subdue the gloom forlorn,
Know! thou wast vainly born:
For from these Eyne to melt such mists obscure
Perforce must I present, to sight that ceast,
Other Sun, other Day-dawn, other East,
L’ENVOI.
If light my Planet showers
Revive me not, Canzon! with soft sweet powers,
Like rain-flowers wilted in the short sunshine
Thou’lt sight a Life which melts in tearful brine. z 2
CANZON XVI.
Por meyo de humas serras muy fragosas,
(A country piece: imitation of Gaspar Gil Polo’s Rimas
Provenzalts).
I.
Mid serried Mounts, a broken, cliff-lipped height,
Girt by
a growth of forest old and hoar,
Waking the rugged rocks with reflect roar,
Flow these perennial fountains of delight:
The stream Bui’na hight and eke its vale
(A far-famed dale,
For-that its mead
Is ‘namelled
With freshest views
Of verdant hues),
Show a so goodly sight, such views amene,
The scene exceedeth every fairest scene:
Here birds go winging,
By thousands singing,
While fledgelings play
On every spray,
Whose softest concert of song-melodies
Serenes the winds and gentles every breeze.
III.
From this bough Nightingale shrills loudly sweet,
From that respondeth Linnet’s lively strain;
Dame Partridge, who in holt hath refuge tane;
Hearing the hunter flusheth fast and fleet —
Fleeter and faster than the wanton wind —
For she would find
Some safer ground;
But ‘ere ’tis found
The while she hurries
And chuckling scurries
Faster the fatal bolt behind her flieth,
Wherewith she wounded droopeth, droppeth, dieth.
By snare and sleight
To harm and fright
The evil-fated,
Whenas amated
By sparsely scattered grains of golden corn,
Into the foeman’s hand she fall forlorn.
V.
Here Challander trolleth from the crucified vine
The Ring-dove moaneth, chattereth the Stare;
The snowy Culver fast from nest doth fare
The Throstle percheth high on olive-tine:
Outtroop with murmurous hum the honey-bees,
And haste to seize
Their dewy store,
All fresh and frore,
O’er meadow sheen
Adorned with green,
Whence they the fragrant golden Drink distil
Given to mankind by Aristaeus’ skill.
The stony pellets,
The conchs and shell-lets
Rubicund,
Which the jocund
Wavelets bear ‘flood-wards with their rattling flow
And, surging soft, o’er blanched strands bestrow.
VII.
Here ‘mid the fanged ranges start for flight
The Calydonian beast, the stag, the deer,
Nor can their swiftness stay their panick fear
Whom their own sounding falls of foot affright.
Flies scudding Rabbit, tricksy Levret flies
Her form, that lies
Beneath the bracken,
Where comes a trackin’
The light-foot Lyme;
And many a time,
Ere by her fervid enemy overtane,
She leaves her follower following in vain.
Here, eke, doth Flora
— Ever restore a
Luis de Camoes Collected Poetical Works Page 161
