柳林下，泉水边，
我独自哀悼爱人的亡灵；
唯有天上的爱神前来作拌，
与我并坐泉边俯看水中的倒影；
他低头躲避我的目光，
他双唇紧闭默不出声；
他不能把天机向我泄漏，
只得弹起古瑟细细传达真情；
清泉里我们四目相对
碧水中我们心明如镜；
他的琴曲化作爱人温柔的话语，
我再也忍不住泪如雨淋。
我的泪水滴落泉中，
爱神的眼睛变成了爱人的眼睛；
爱神迈开脚步张开翅膀，
越过清泉就无踪无影；
那泉水便流进了我焦渴的心田，
那碧浪便幻化成爱人卷发的波纹；
俯身细看，爱人的红唇向我扑来，
汩汩喷涌出阵阵狂吻。
Willow Wood
I sat with Love upon a woodside well,
Leaning across the water, I and he；
Nor ever did he speak nor look’d at me,
But touch’d his lute where in was audible
The certain secret thing he had to tell：
Only our mirror’d eyes met silently
In the low wave；and thatsound came to be
The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell．
And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers；
And with his foot and with his wing-feathers
He swept the spring that water’d my heart’s drouth.
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair,
And as I stoop’d, her own lips rising there
Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth．
The May-sun sheds an Amber light
On new-leaved woods and lawns between；
But she who, with a smile more bright,
Welcome and watch the springing green,
Is in her grave,
Low in her grave．
The fair white blossoms of the wood
In groups beside the pathway stand；
But one, the gentle and the good,
Who cropp’d them with a fairer hand,
Is in her grave,
Low in her grave．
Upon the woodland’s morning airs
The small birds’ mingled notes are flung；
But she, whose voice, more sweet than theirs,
Once bade me listen, while they sung,
Is in her grave,
Low in her grave．
That music of the early year
Brings tears of anguish to my eyes；
My heart aches when the flowers appear；
For then I think of her who lies
Within her grave,
Low in her grave．
At the Mid Hour of Night
Air—“Molly, my Dear”
At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved when life was warm in thine eye,
And I think that if spirits can steal from the regions of air
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remember’d, even in the sky!
Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear!
When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on the ear,
And, as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think answering still the notes that once were so dear．
Ternissa! you are fled!
I say not to the dead,
But to the happy ones who rest below：
For surely, surely, where
Your voice and graces are,
Nothing of death can any feel or know．
Girls who delight to dwell
Where grows most asphodel,
Gather to their calm breasts each word you speak：
The wild Persephone
Places you on her knee,
And your cool palm smoothes down stern Pluto’s cheek．
“Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versariquam tui meminisse!”
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth；
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return’d to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o’ver the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look．
I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot；
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not：
It is enough for me to prove
That what I loved, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot；
To me there needs no stone to tell,
’Tis nothing that I loved so well．
Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now．
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow：
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me．
The better days of life were ours；
The worst can be but mine：
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine．
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep；
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass’d away,
I might have watch’d through long decay．
The flower in ripen’d bloom unmatch’d,
Must fall the earliest prey；
Though by no hand untimely snatch’d,
The leaves must drop away：
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf
Than see it pluck’d today；
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair．
I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade；
The night that follow’d such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade．
The day without a cloud hath pass’d,
And thou wert lovely to the last；
Extinguish’d, not decay’d；
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightly as thy fall from high．
As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o’er thy bed；
To gaze, how fondly! On thy face,
Upon thy drooping head；
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again．
Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou has left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.