Beneath this gloomy shade,
By Nature only for my sorrows made,
I'll spend this voice in cries;
In tears I'll waste these eyes,
By Love so vainly fed;
So Lust, of old, the Deluge punished.
"Ah, wretched youth!" said I;
Ah, wretched youth!" twice did I sadly cry;
Ah, wretched youth!" the fields and floods reply.
When thoughts of Love I entertain,
I meet no words but "Never," and "In vain."
"Never," alas! that dreadful name
Which fuels the internal flame:
"Never" my time to come must waste;
"In vain" torments the present and the past.
"In vain, in vain," said I;
"In vain, in vain!" twice did I sadly cry;
"In vain, in vain!" the fields and floods reply.
No more shall fields or floods do so;
For I to shades more dark and silent go:
All this world's noise appears to me
A dull, ill-acted comedy:
No comfort to my wounded sight,
In the sun's busy and impertinent light.
Then down I laid my head,
Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.
"Ah, sottish Soul!" said I,
When back to' its cage again I saw it fly;
"Fool, to resume her broken chain,
"And row her galley here again !
"Fool, to that body to return
"Where it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn!
"Once dead, how can it be,
"Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,
"That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?"