Part of the World she willed Life so brief
E’en of its little leave a little space;
So might the Life I led
In shattered pieces o’er the Woold be spread.
III.
Here woned I wasting days in darkling Ill,
Woeful, enforced, evil, solitaire,
Wi’ toil and travail filled and ires and woes:
Not having only (no!) to me contráyr
Sea-life, sun-scorching, waters raw and chill
And ugly climate’s gross and gravid air,
But eke my Thoughts, the wanderer’s primest snare
That mocks the very nature of his mind,
‘Gainst me I saw in strife;
To Memory’s ken they bore
Some dream of fleeting short-lived, by-gone gloire
The World had shown me when I lived my life;
Only to double Ills wherewith I pined;
Only to prove there be
For man full many an hour of gree and glee.
IV.
Here with such thankless Thoughts did I remain
Wasting my time and life; while to such height
On Fancy’s wing they flew, then failed and fell
(O, look ye could such fall for me be light!)
Down, down fro’ visioned bliss and dreamery vain
To Wanhope never sighting day of Joy.
Imagination turned here to annoy
And improvised yammer, sob and sigh
That tare the echoing air.
Here my Soul prison-hent
Saw her quick fleshly Casing torn and rent
By dolours girded, driven to despair;
A butt exposed to dread artillerye
Of Fortune’s proud misboon,
Pride-full, inexorable, importune.
V.
Nowheres had I to lodge, nowheres to lie,
Nor aught of Esperance where my weary head
Might rest a moment and enjoy repose:
All was one sorrow, all things suffering bred,
Yet not to do me dead (no!) but to aby
Untamed Destiny’s will and chosen ill.
Oh! how this seething Sea with groans I still!
These Winds, my wearied accents vex and tire,
Would seem their wrath t’ inrein:
Only the Heavens severe,
Planets and Fate and Fortune ever fere,
Of my perpetual losses gat their gain;
Proving them potent, wreaking all their ire
On Atomy terrene,
An earth-born, earth-bred Worm, so wee, so mean.
VI.
An from such Labours could my lot befall
To learn for certain that at any hour
Remembered me those lovely Eyes erst seen;
And if these mournful words I here outpour
Could reach and touch those ears angelical
Of Her whose sight my light of Life hath been;
Who turning somewhat on herself my teen
And in her Mind revolving, with all haste,
The times, that now are naught,
Of my douce erring ways,
Of my sweet evils, and the stormy days
For her I suffered and for her I sought,
And (albe late) if by some pity graced
Some touch of ruth she’d own
And self condemn that had o’erharshness shown:
VII.
This could I only know forsure, I’d feel
A Something restful ‘waits remaining life,
To soothe my sufferings and to glad my woe.
Ah Ladye! Ah Ladye! in what riches rife
Are you? that here ferforth from every Weal
By mere sweet feigning sustenance you bestow!
Attonce, when Fancy deigns your shape to show,
Fly all my pitiful toils, flies all my pain,
Only remembering you
I fare with strength secure
And e’en Death’s stoniest stare I dare endure;
And Hopes around me gathering hope renew,
Whereby my bended brow, made smooth and fain,
Makes grief, however grave,
Melt into yearning reveries soft and suave.
VIII.
Here ask I (with my soul such thoughts obeying)
Of love-born breezes breathing low their sighs,
Ladye! what news fro’ where you bide they bore;
Of birds, thence winging, you did they espy?
How fare you, Fairest? what your lips were saying?
Whence? How? Wi’ whom? What was the day, the hour?
There my tired Life-tide bettereth of its stowre,
Taking new spirits bravelier to warray
Fortune with toil and grieving,
Only once more to view you
Only once more to serve you and to lo’e you.
Time saith he all will end wi’ single cleaving:
Yet the fond longing Love, who long delay
Ne’er suffereth, shows him bent
Old wounds to open and anew torment.
L’ENVOI.
Thus live I; and if any ask of thee
Canzon! why nill I die?
Thou mayst reply him “’Tis because I die!”
CANZON XI.
Vinde cá meu tao certo Secretario
(Autobiographical, No. 2).
I.
Come here! my confidential Secretary
Of the complaints in which my days are rife,
PAPER, — whereon I gar my griefs o’erflow.
Tell we, we twain, Unreasons which in life
Deal me inexorable, contrary
Destinies surd to prayer and tearful woe.
Dash we some water-drops on muchel lowe,
Fire we with outcries storm of rage so rare
That shall be strange to mortal memory.
Such misery tell we
To God and Man and eke, in fine, to air
Whereto so many times did I confide
My tale and vainly told as now I tell;
But e’en as error was my birthtide-lot,
That this be one of many doubt I not.
And as to hit the butt so far I fail
E’en if I sinned here cease they to chide:
Within mine only Refuge will I ‘bide
To speak and faultless sin with free intent.
Sad he so scanty mercies must content!
II.
Long I’ve unlearnt me that complaint of dole
Brings cure of dolours; but a wight in pain
To greet is forced an the grief be great
I will outgreet; but weak my voice and vain
To express the sorrows which oppress my soul;
For nor with greeting shall my dole abate.
Who then shall grant me, to relieve my weight
Of sorrow, flowing tears and infinite sighs
Equal those miseries my Sprite o’erpower?
But who at any hour
Can measure miseries with his tears or cries?
I’ll tell, in fine, the lore for me design’d
By wrath and woe and all their sovenance;
For other dole hath qualities harder, sterner.
Draw near and hear me each despairing Learner
And fly the many fed on Esperance —
Or wights who fancy Hope will prove her kind;
For Love and Fortune willed, with single mind,
To leave them hopeful, so they comprehend
What measure of unweal in hand they hend.
I learnt a thousand times it was my doom
To know the Better and to work the Worse:
Then with conforming tormentize to curse
My course of coming years, when cast I round
A boyish eye-glance with a gentle zest,
It was my Star’s behest
A Boy born blind should deal me life-long wound.
Infantine tear-drops welled out the deep
With vague en
amoured longings, nameless pine:
My wailing accents fro’ my cradle-stound
Already sounded me love-sighing sound.
Thus age and destiny had like design:
For when, peraunter, rocking me to sleep
They sung me Love-songs wherein lovers weep,
Attonce by Nature’s will asleep I fell,
So Melancholy witcht me with her spell!
IV.
My nurse some Feral was; fate nilled approve
By any Woman such a name be tane
Who gave me breast; nor seemed it suitable.
Thus was I suckled that my lips indrain
E’en fro’ my childhood venom-draught of Love,
Whereof in later years I drained my fill,
Till by long custom failed the draught to kill.
Then an Ideal semblance struck my glance
Of that fere Human deckt with charms in foyson.
Sweet with the suavest poyson,
Who nourisht me with paps of Esperance;
Till later saw mine eyes the original,
Which of my wildest, maddest appetite
Makes sinful error sovran and superb.
Meseems as human form it came disturb,
But scintillating Spirit’s divinest light
So graceful gait, such port imperial
Were hers, unweal vainglory’d self to weal
When in her sight, whose lively sheen and shade
Exceeded aught and all things Nature made.
V.
What new unkindly kind of human pain
Had Love not only doled for me to dree
But eke on me was wholly execute?
Implacable harshness cooling fervency
Of Love-desire (thought’s very might and main)
Drave me far distant fro’ my settled suit,
Vext and self-shamed to sight its own pursuit.
Hence sombre shades phantastick born and bred
Of trifles promising rashest Esperance;
While boons of happy chance
Were likewise feigned and enfigured.
But her despisal wrought me such dismay
That made my Fancy phrenesy-ward incline,
Turning to disconcert the guiling lure.
Here mine ’twas to divine, and hold for sure,
That all was truest Truth I could divine;
And straightway all I said in shame to unsay;
To see whatso I saw in contrayr way;
In fine, just Reasons seek for jealousy
Yet were the Unreasons eather far to see.
I. —
I know not how she knew that fared she stealing
With Eyen-rays mine inner man which flew
Her-ward with subtlest passage through the eyne
Little by little all fro’ me she drew,
E’en as from rain-wet canopy, exhaling
The subtle humours, sucks the hot sunshine.
The pure transparent geste and mien, in fine,
Wherefore inadequate were and lacking sense
“Beauteous “ and “Belle” were words withouten weight;
The soft, compassionate
Eye-glance that held the Spirit in suspense,
Such were the magick herbs the Heavens all-wise
Drave me a draught to drain, and for long years
To other Being my shape and form transmew’d;
And this transforming with such joy I view’d
That e’en my sorrows snared I with its snares;
And, like the doomed man, I veiled mine eyes
To hide an evil crescive in such guise;
Like one caressed and on flattery fed
Of Love for whom his being was born and bred.
VII.
Then who mine absent Life hath power to paint
Wi’ discontent of all I bore in view;
That Bide, so far from where she had her Bide,
Speaking, which even what I spake unknew,
Wending, withal unseeing where I went,
And sighing weetless for what cause I sigh’d?
Then, as those torments last endurance tried,
That dreadful dolour which from Tartarus’ waves
Shot up on earth and racketh more than all,
Wherefrom shall oft befall
It turn to gentle yearning rage that raves?
Then with repine-full fury fever-high,
Wishing yet wishing not for Love’s surceáse;
Shifting to other side for vengeance,
Desires deprived of their esperance,
What now could ever change such ills as these?
Then the fond yearnings for the things gone by,
Pure torment sweet in bitter faculty,
Which from these fiery furies could distil
Sweet tears of Love with pine the soul to thrill?
VIII.
For what excuses lone with self I sought,
When my suave Love forfended me to find
Fault in the Thing beloved and so loved?
Such were the feigned cures that forged my mind
In fear of torments that for ever taught
Life to support itself by snares approved.
Thus through a goodly part of Life I roved,
Wherein if ever joyed I aught content
Short-lived, immodest, flaw-full, without heed,
’Twas nothing save the seed
That bare me bitter tortures long unspent.
This course continuous dooming to distress,
These wandering steps that strayed o’er every road
So wrought, they quencht for me the flamy thirst
I suffered grow in Sprite, in Soul I nurst
With Thoughts enamoured for my daily food,
Whereby was fed my Nature’s tenderness:
And this by habit’s long and asperous stress,
Which might of mortals never mote resist,
Was turned to pleasure-taste of being triste.
IX.
Thus fared! Life with other interchanging;
I no, but Destiny showing fere unlove;
Yet even thus for other ne’er I’d change.
Me from my dear-loved patrial nide she drove
Over the broad and boisterous Ocean ranging,
Where Life so often saw her Extreme range.
Now tempting rages rare and missiles strange
Of Mart, she willed that my eyes should see
And hands should touch, the bitter fruit he dight:
That on this Shield they sight
In painted semblance fire of enemy.
Then ferforth driven, vagrant, peregrine,
Seeing strange nations, customs, tongues, costumes;
Various heavens, qualities different,
Only to follow, passing-diligent
Thee, giglet Fortune! whose fierce will consumes
Man’s age upbuilding aye before his eyne
A Hope with semblance of the diamond’s shine:
But, when it falleth out of hand we know,
’Twas fragile glass that showed so glorious show.
X.
Failed me the ruth of man, and I descried
Friends to unfriendly changed and contráyr,
In my first peril; and I lacked ground,
Whelmed by the second, where my feet could fare;
Air for my breathing was my lot denied,
Time failed me, in fine, and failed me Life’s dull round.
What darkling secret, mystery profound
This birth to Life, while life is doomed withhold
Whate’er the world contain for Life to use!
Yet never Life to lose
Though ’twas already lost times manifold!
In brief my Fortune could no horror make,
Ne certain danger ne ancipitous case
(Injustice dealt by men, whom wild-confused
Misrule, that rights of olden days abused,
O’er neighbou
r-men upraised to power and place!)
I bore not, lashed to the sturdy stake,
Of my long-suffering, which my heart would break
With importuning persecuting harms
Dasht to a thousand bits by forceful arms.
XI.
Number I not so numerous ills as He
Who, ‘scaped the wuthering wind and furious flood,
In happy harbour tells his travel-tale:
Yet now, e’en now, my Fortune’s wavering mood
To so much misery obligeth me
That e’en to pace one forward pace I quail:
No more shirk I what evils may assail;
No more to falsing welfare I pretend;
For human cunning naught can gar me gain.
In fine on sovran Strain
Of Providence divine I now depend:
This thought, this prospect ’tis at times I greet.
My sole consoler for dead hopes and fears.
But human weakness when its eyne alight
Upon the things that fleet, and can but sight
The sadding Memories of the long-past years;
What bread such times I break, what drink I drain,
Are bitter tear-floods I can ne’er refrain,
Save by upbuilding castles based on air,
Phantastick painture fair and false as fair.
XII.
For an it possible were that Time and Tide
Could bend them backward and, like Memory, view
The faded footprints of Life’s earlier day;
And, web of olden story weaving new,
In sweetest error could my footsteps guide
‘Mid bloom of flowers where wont my youth to stray;
Then would the memories of the long sad way
Deal me a larger store of Life-content;
Viewing fair converse and glad company,
Where this and other key
She held for opening hearts to new intent; —
The fields, the frequent stroll, the lovely show,
The view, the snow, the rose, the formosure,
The soft and gracious mien so gravely gay,
The singular friendship casting clean away
All villein longings, earthy and impure,
As One whose Other I can never see; —
Ah, vain, vain memories! whither lead ye me
With this weak heart, that still must toil and tire
To tame (as tame it should) your vain Desire?
L’ENVOI.
No more, Canzon! no more; for I could prate
Sans compt a thousand years; and if befall
Blame to thine over-large and long-drawn strain
We ne’er shall see (assure who blames) contain
An Ocean’s water packt in vase so small.
Nor sing I delicate lines in softest tone
For gust of praise; my song to man makes known
Pure Truth wherewith mine own Experience teems,
Would God they were the stuff that builds our
Luis de Camoes Collected Poetical Works Page 160