I had a love and my dear love left;
And I could not comprehend his leaving:
O why did you run? My heart’s bereft,
And sore from all this grieving.

O loving heart, why did you lie?
To be forsaken, wherefore and why?
You had a life and a world before me;
Was it I who stopped you being free?

I gave you gifts and wished to please,
What affliction could I not appease?

I’ll never tell you those three words
But that does not mean they’re not there
But when I try to say them aloud
From my lips comes nothing but air.

I’ll never tell you those three words
I’ve resolved to make that the rule
For like that Mary Magdalene
I am no lover’s fool.

I’ll never tell you those three words
But that does not mean it’s not true
I’ll not stay silent, never fear, but for now,
“You know nothing”, will do.

My youth has been nothing but stormy and savage,
A tempest of thunder and lightning and rain;
Though glimpses of sunlight have lessened the damage
Few ripe fruits now in my garden remain.

My mind has reached its autumnal phase,
With the ***** and the rake I begin my toil
In earthy hollows as deep as graves
To gather anew the rain flooded soil.

And who knows whether my dreams of new flowers
Will find in this earth washed bare like the shore,
The mystic elixir that would give them might?

Alas, alas! Our lives are eaten away by the hours,
And at our hearts the hidden Enemy gnaws
And ***** our blood like a parasite!

I am lovely, O mortals! Like a dream carved in stone,
And my breast where poets are bruised to the bone
Formed to inspire each in their quintessence
A love as eternal and silent as essence.

I unite Ledaean pallor with a frozen heart,
I scorn movement for it displaces my art,
A riddling sphinx, on a throne in the sky;
Never do I laugh and never do I cry.

Poets, at the feet of my imperial pose,
Which I seem to adopt from statues grandiose,
Will consume their lives in studious indulgence;

For I have, to enthrall those docile paramours
Pure mirrors to enhance all beauties evermore:
My eyes, my large, wide eyes of eternal effulgence!

Here are berries, leaves, twigs and blossoms fair,
And here, my heart that for you alone beats.
Clasp it in your pale hands and please do not tear,
But see it as a gift, to your pretty eyes sweet.

I come to you covered with dew and sap,
Which the morning’s wind freezes on my forehead.
Bear me, in my fatigue, to lie in your lap,
Dreaming of pleasures to restore me from the dead

On your young ***** let my head rest,
My body still sated with your last kiss;
Let my mind dwindle after such a tempest
And I’ll sleep a little beside you in bliss.

Your soul is a choice, bucolic scene
With charming travellers in a masquerade
Playing the lute and dancing, yet seem
Sad beneath their fanciful charade.

All carouse in a minor key
Of victorious love and opportunity,
They seem not to believe in their delight
And their song mingles with the moonlight,

In the still moonlight, beautiful and blue,
Birds in the trees dream and sigh by
Elegant fountains among marble statues,
And the cascades in their ecstasy cry.

As the voice of a dead man might sing
From the depths of his tomb,
For you, Mistress, my tuneless voice rings
False in my heart’s catacomb.

Open your soul and hear the knell
Of my mandolin strings:
This song I wrote, for you, which tells
Of cruel and childish things.

I will sing of your eyes, onyx and gold,
Purged of every shadow,
Then the Lethe of your breast, the cold
Styx of your hair’s dark flow.

As the voice of a dead man might sing
From the depths of his tomb,
For you, Mistress, my tuneless voice rings
False in my heart’s catacomb.

Then I will praise, above all
Flesh that heaven did bless
Whose opulent perfumes recall
Nights long and sleepless.

Finally, I will speak of the kiss
Of your sweet red lip,
Oh, how my martyrdom is bliss,
– My angel! – My Whip!

Open your soul and hear the knell
Of my mandolin strings:
This song I wrote, for you, which tells
Of cruel and childish things.