Chapter VI (7)

Wild doubts, that floating in my brain delight
To war with my fond feelings, tempesting
In your suspicious flight with angry wing
My melancholy bosom, day and night!
Now is my force of mind extinguished quite,
And all resistance, vain is my lamenting,--
Vanquished, I yield myself at length, repenting,--
E'er to have striven in such a hopeless fight.
Bear me to that lone tower whose gate alarms
The quick,--my death I saw not graven there,
Blindness has sealed my eyes till now; my arms
I cast aside; since their misfortunes bar
Help from the unhappy--the proud pomp prepare,
And hang my spoils on your triumphal car!

XXVII.

Within my spirit was conceived in train
Of amiable esteem a love most sweet,
Whose birth, with all the joy with which men greet
Their first-born's birth, long wished for, but in vain,
I hailed,--but soon from it was born a bane
Which has entirely conquered that fond flight
Of feeling, and transformed my first delight
Into sharp rigour and tormenting pain.
O cruel grandson, that to thy meek sire
Giv'st life, yet strik'st thy mournful grandsire dead,
Why so unlike thy parent! what black scowl
Wear'st thou, stern Jealousy, beneath thy cowl,
When ev'n thine own fierce mother, Envy dire,
Shrieks to behold the monster which she bred!

XXVIII.

I am for ever bathed in tears, I rend
The air with sighs, and suffer more from dread
To tell thee 'tis through thee I have been led
To such a state that, seeing where I tend,
And the long distance I have come, sweet friend,
In following thee, if I desire to leave
The vain pursuit, my heart sinks to perceive
The way behind me lengthening without end.
And if I wish to reach the onward height,
Sad thoughts of those who in the wilderness
Have fallen, at every step awake my fear;
Now above all things then I need the light
Of hope, by which I have been wont to steer
Through the dim tract of thy forgetfulness.

XXIX.

Past now the countries of the Midland Main,
Wretched--I lose the bliss of former times,
Borne farther every day from Christian climes,
Realms, customs, tongues, and from my native Spain.
And now despairing to return again,
I muse on remedies of fancied power;
The most assured one is the fatal hour
That will conclude at once my life and pain.
I should be charmed from whate'er ills close o'er me,
With seeing you, Lady, or might hope to be,
If I could hope without the certainty
Of losing what I hope; but not seeing you,
Save death, I see no remedy before me,
And if death be one, it will fail me too.

XXX. TO BOSCÁN, FROM GOLETTA.

Boscán! the sword, the shout, and trumpet shrill
Of Mars, who, watering with his own red blood
The Lybian soil in this tremendous feud,
Makes our green Roman laurel flourish still,--
Have to my memory brought the ancient skill,
And old Italian valour, by whose force
All Africa was shook, from the coy source
Of Nile's young fountain to far Atlas' hill.
Here, where the steady Roman's conquering brand
And fiery torch tipt with licentious flame,
Have left poor Carthage nothing but a name,
Love with his whirling thoughts on every hand
Wounds and inflames me in his fearful sway,
And I in tears and ashes waste away.

XXXI.

I thank thee, Heaven, that I have snapt in twain
The heavy yoke that on my neck I wore,
And that at length I can behold from shore,
Void of all fear, the black tempestuous main;
Can see, suspended by a slender chain,
The life of lovers who enchanted rest
In error, slumbering upon Beauty's breast,
To warning deaf, and blinded to their bane.
So shall I smile when mortals are undone,
Nor yet be found so cruel to my kind
As may appear,--I shall but smile as one
To health restored, whom sickness long confined,
Not to see others suffering, but to see
Myself from similar afflictions free.

XXXII. TO MARIO GALEOTA.

WRITTEN FROM GOLETTA.

My friend, ungrateful Love, who well must know
With what pure constancy my faith I keep,
Exerting his base pride, which is to heap
Upon his dearest friend his heaviest woe,--
Fearing that if I write, and publish so
His deeds, his grandeur I abate, his force
Not equalling his spite, has had recourse
To the fierce intervention of my foe;
And in the noble part with which I wield
The sword, and that which gives intelligence
Of our conceptions, I have wounded been;
But I will take good care that the offence
Shall cost the offender dear, now I am healed,
Offended, free, and for repayment keen.

XXXIII.

My tongue goes as grief guides it, and I stray
Already in my grief without a guide;
We both must go, howe'er dissatisfied,
With hasty step in an unwished-for way.
I, but companioned by the dark array
Of images that frenzy does create,
And that, as forced along by grief to state
A thousand things it never wished to say.
The law to me is most severe--it knows
My innocence, yet makes not mine alone,
But others' faults, my torturers! why should I
Smart for the madness of my tongue, when woes
Beyond endurance lift the lash on high,
And Reason trembles on her tottering throne?

XXXIV.

Entering a valley in a sandy waste
Which none was journeying save myself alone,
A dog I noticed, which with piteous tone
In disconcerted grief the wild sands paced;
Now to the sky it howled, its way now traced
Snuffing the dew, now ran, now turned, now stayed,
And its concern by every mark betrayed
Of desolate delay or restless haste.
It was that it had missed its lord that morn,
And felt the separation; mark the pain
Of absence! Much did its distraction move
My pity, and 'have patience, poor forlorn,'
I cried--'I, thy superior, from my love
Am absent too, yet my regret restrain.'

XXXV.

Loud blew the winds in anger and disdain,
And raged the waves, when to his Sestian maid,
Leander, ardent of her charms, essayed
For the last time to swim the stormy main.
Conquered with toil, o'erwearied, and in pain,
More for the bliss which he should lose by death,
Than sorrowful to breathe out his sweet breath
On the vext surge he buffeted in vain,--
Feebly, 'twas all he could, the dying boy
Called to the waves, (but never word of woe
Was heard by them) "if me you must destroy,
This melancholy night, look not so stern;
Vent as you will your rage on my return,
But spare, kind waters, spare me as I go!"

XXXVI. TO THE LADY DONNA MARIA DE CARDONA, MARCHIONESS OF PADULA.

Lady, whose name to high Cardona brings
Fresh praise, whose talents and fair deeds require
Immortal accents from Minturno's lyre,
Tansillo's harp, and polished Tasso's strings;
If force, if fire, if spirit whilst he sings,
Fail not at need thy Lasso's Spanish lute,
Through thee I shall arrive, with daring foot,
At Helicon's steep crown and sky-born springs,
By dulcet sounds that might the waves command,
Accomplishing with ease the ambitious aim:
By ways a wilderness till now, the land
Of storied valour, of romantic fame,
And Tagus, rolling o'er a golden sand,
Pay happy tribute to thy noble name.

XXXVII.

Fair Naiads of the river, that reside
Happy in grottos of rock crystal veined
With shining gems, and loftily sustained
On columns of pure glass! if now ye glide
On duteous errands, or weave side by side
Webs of fine net-work, or in groups remove
To hear and tell romantic tales of love,
Of Genii, Fays, and Tritons of the tide,--
Awhile remit your labours, and upraise
Your rosy heads to look on me--not long
Will it detain you. Sweet'ners of my song!
For pity hear me, watering as I go
With tears your borders, and for such short space,
In heavenly notes sing solace to my woe!

TO HIS LADY, HAVING MARRIED ANOTHER.

1.
To love thee, after what thy vow,
Slighting my truth, has made thee now,
Must be a crime, but one, false fair,
Which thou wilt have to expiate, where
None will know thee for having known
So ill the heart thou leavest lone.

2.
Loving so passionately thy free
Seducing smile, I thought to be
Lost, but not guilty; but, alas,
By all I am, by all I was,
'Tis proved too surely, to my cost,
I guilty am, as well as lost!

3.
Oh that I loved not with the zeal
Thou'rt but too well assured I feel!
That I exultingly might say,
'Tis joy to think that thou wilt pay,
In unknown modes of future woe,
For what none save ourselves shall know.

TO THE SAME.

1.
I will now cease, nor ruffle more
Thy beauteous cheek with speech so free;
My silent dying shall restore
Its peace, and mutely speak for me.

2.
I have already deeply erred
In saying what were best unsaid,
Thy gentle heart I have but stirred,
Not staunched a single wound that bled.

3.
Henceforth I heave no fruitless sighs,
No tears but unseen tears I shed;
The injured heart that silent dies,
Has that which speaks in Injury's stead!

ON A DEPARTURE.

1.
Perhaps the youth who seemed so cold
In leaving thee so soon, to seek
Scenes where he will no more behold
Thy lustrous eye and smiling cheek,
Yet loved thee much,--the hope to meet
Once more, makes ev'n departure sweet.

2.
It is not possible that one
Like him considerate--Love forbid!
Thinking he knew thee, could have known,
Enchanted mortal, what he did,
When he empowered thee thus to weave
His joy and grief the self-same eve.

3.
He took perhaps the readiest way
He could have done thy worth to know;
From thy fine face and finer play
Of wit he could not, could not go,
And seeing thee but once, remain
Content to see thee ne'er again.

TO A LADY,

_Who threw to Garcilasso whilst walking with a friend, her spindle, and the net she had begun to weave, saying it was all the work she had done that day._

1.
Lady! from this net and coil
We must gather, that you cast
From you, in an hour, the toil
Of the four and twenty past.

2.
If at passers-by you send
The fair work your fingers do,
How think you to discommend
That which others weave for you!

FROM OVID.

1.
Since I have lost my bridal name,
Sichæan Dido, when the gloom
Of death has quenched my vital flame,
Be this the legend on my tomb:

2.
"The worst of Trojans gave, alas,
The cruel cause--the sword unjust;
Poor Dido, brought to life's last pass,
Could furnish nothing but the thrust!"

COMMENT ON THIS TEXT:

"_Why, what calumnious charge is this
That you against him would advance?
All that the good knight did amiss
Was, that he ever joined the dance._"

Count they then this a great offence?
I do not think it such; his sin
Is quite excused by the defence
That 'twas the woman drew him in.
She, she it was that caused his fall
More, much more than the having set
His mind upon surpassing all
In the fantastic pirouette.[12]

TO FERNANDO DE ACUÑA.

Whilst thou, Fernando, strikest from thy strings
The illustrious deeds of heroes and of kings,
Whilst men, whilst Gods stand spellbound at thy strain
Of barbarous nations tamed by sceptred Spain,--
From Pindus' sacred crown and tuneful falls,
Thee with sweet words Calliope thus calls:
"Hail, youth, whose temples, late alone entwined
By Mars' red hand, now bays Phoebean bind!
This grants Apollo, this the God of wine,
The lightfoot Nymphs, and whole harmonious Nine,
That with the kings that to thy lyric fire
Owe half their fame, thyself that smit'st the lyre,
Shall unborn nations join--admire, and praise,
And no dark night succeed thine endless days."[13]