Luis de Camoes Collected Poetical Works

by Luis de Camoes

  Dreams!

  CANZON XII.

  Nem roxa flor de Abril,

  (Her fresh young beauty compared with the Planets),

  I.

  Red Rose in April-reign

  Painter of smiling field and coverture,

  ‘Mid other thousand tane,

  Ne’er was so grateful gift to Damosel

  Courteous and gay and belle,

  Her mother’s care and boast, the pure of pure,

  As to me showed that artless formosure

  Nature so loves to lend her

  That she makes Saturn in far sphere surrender.

  II.

  No rustick natural Spring

  Untaught by excellent craftsman-hand to flow,

  But by art-fashioning

  Of Heaven derived from the rugged stone,

  E’er so glad sight hath shown

  To hunter panting in the noony glow,

  As care in me did full contentment grow

  When viewed that careless mien

  Which ee’n can irous Jupiter serene.

  III.

  Fruit that sans training hand

  Dependeth bounden to its natural place,

  Which freak of Fortune fand

  For him who sees it dyed blood-red, milk-white,

  Ne’er dealt him such delight

  As deals to me that unadulterate grace,

  The brightest charm of beauty’s form and face,

  That head-veil spuming art

  Would turn to carlish herd the war-god Mart

  IV.

  The Morn who gracious glows

  And rising rains from hyacinthine hair

  Lily and daisy and rose,

  Sans aid of ornamental artifice,

  Ne’er shows so sweet device

  As shows that splendid glow of eyen rare

  To him who views them purely, ferly fair;

  And innocent smiles suffice us;

  Wherefore Apollo maketh Tage Amphrysus.

  V.

  The Mounts, whose kingly brows

  Trees in their tangled holts and haughs o’erstrew

  With round embowled boughs,

  Glad growth no dextrous handiwork could train,

  Grace of so lofty vein

  Vaunt not in natural shades of verdant hue

  As in these orbs so clear, so pure we view;

  Large store of esperance

  Love’s love and Venus’ venom to enhance.

  The birdies’ simple song

  A musick lacking trick of tone ‘and time,

  The green ramáge among,

  Ne’er sounds so sweet, nor brings him such delight

  Who, ‘neath the treen night,

  Hears it and wings his Sprite for higher clime,

  As this sweet talking in mine ear doth chime,

  This lore-light Nature-lit,

  These wits that plunder Mercury’s wand and wit.

  VII.

  Freshets that freshest flow —

  And from the forest-fount so clear derive

  Tombling fro’ high cliff-brow,

  And with their pearl-lets ‘namelling the green

  Of tenderest shine and sheen,

  And ‘scapes our sight, soft-murmuring, fugitive,

  Ne’er gave such gladness as the Graces give

  Stored in that sovereign light

  Which rustick Dian hath a courtier dight.

  L’ENVOI.

  Seeing this light (Canzon! that durst so dare!)

  All fall and prostrate wait

  Saturnine Saturn, Jove of sprite irate

  Fere Mars, fair-faxt Apollo, Venus fair,

  And Mercury and Dian and every Sterre.

  CANZON XIII.

  O pomar venturoso!

  (To an Orchard on the Zézéré River; with a chapel of the B. Virgin).

  I.

  Fair Vergier apple’d bright,

  Where Nature-craft we see

  With cunning human art at odds contend;

  And in so sweet a site

  Superior subtlety

  Of Genius showst, nude charms withouten end!

  No Judgment may pretend

  (Be it blind, or high and rare)

  To judge if greater part

  Or Nature ’twas or Art

  Or earth or heaven lent thee most of care;

  For joys thy glad terrene

  Joyaunce of purest air the most serene.

  II.

  In thy delicious weight

  The Mount his pleasure showing,

  Fends fro’ thy skirts Zezeré’s rushing waves,

  So proud thou contemplate

  His chrystal purely flowing

  Which blent with Pera bounds thy feet and laves.

  Thy painture hath such braves

  That gar Apelles pale;

  Enigmas intricate,

  With myrtles animate

  We see, which Scopas’ self to carve would fail

  In thee with peace internal

  An holy pleasure holdeth place eternal.

  III.

  The Garths of far-enfamed

  Babel o’er earth besung

  Be now a miracle by worlds unpraise’d!

  Tho’ Glory’s voice proclaimed

  Their hanging heights were hung

  (Thus Antique Fame) in air unstable raise’d:

  Nor any view amaze’d

  Alcinous’ Paradise;

  Nor pens that learning vaunt

  Maecenas’ gardens chaunt,

  Planter of peregrine humanities;

  But whereso fly she, Fame

  Speak of thee only and thy gifts proclaim.

  IV.

  For, if in olden term

  Bright pomes of glowing gold

  Deckt garths and orchards of the Hesperides;

  And ‘spite the deadly Worm

  (Their ward) alone the bold

  Alcides daréd strip the dooming trees;

  Thou with more power to please

  Teachest the pure chaste Sprite

  Her wished-for weal to win,

  To fly foul envy-sin

  (Those golden pomes! Time never bring them blight!)

  In fine with charity

  Conquering Hell to ope Eternity.

  V.

  Meanwhile of Aventure

  By Time for thee foretracéd

  Heaven grant thee Joyaunce which shall never wane;

  That show thy scene so pure

  With greater glory gracéd

  A figured reflex of the Heavenly Reign;

  That long as Heaven sustain

  This globe of sea and land,

  His grace of highest degree

  His Noblest Mystery,

  Which death and doom from mortal spirits bann’d,

  Bide in our Souls ensoul’d

  And with more palmy Palms more triumphs hold.

  VI.

  Then joy thou long unshent

  The boons of favouring Fate,

  Thy Maker’s Mother dealt, here fitly fane’d:

  That aye with thee content

  From Her sublime estate,

  Joy to her servants’ souls and sents be deign’d;

  And each and all be sain’d

  For nobler qualities

  Than Nestor, wisest wight;

  That so the world shall sight.

  Their years exceeding fabled centuries;

  And with the longer Life

  Endure their Memories in all honour rife.

  L’ENVOI.

  Canzon! sith more enfaméd

  Ne’er by thy praise can be

  This Mount’s delicious stations here proclaiméd;

  Haply Love’s deity

  Who giveth governance to thy numbered strain

  For will to sing them Life eterne shall deign.

  CANZON XIV.

  Quem com solido intento

  (An unfinished imitation of Luigi Groto, showing that like

  Causes do not produce like Effect
s).

  I.

  Whoso with stable mind

  Woos Nature and in Nature’s mystery wise is

  All lore that Athens prizes,

  Cast he to furious wave and fickle wind:

  To forge my pains and bind,

  A new Philosophy,

  Born of experience, Amor to me taught

  From laws of antique Time it fares distraught;

  For Love and Nature disagree in me;

  Hence schools of sages never could attest

  In subject Nature-made,

  What lofty grade Love oped in my breast

  II.

  Birds winnow air serene,

  The herds of Proteus in the waters thrive;

  And men are born to live

  Within this world, a world so meanly mean:

  Me all things inconvene

  In all I bide reparted;

  My mouth’s in air; my wit on earth is cast:

  Love fills the first and Fancy feeds the last;

  My heart consumes with flames for aye enhearted

  But from these eyelids tear-floods ever flowing

  Have workings so contráyr

  In hostile humour flare the flames still growing.

  III.

  Love erst through eyen-sight

  Of Lovers’ hearts the gateway safest gain’d:

  That Law now lies prophane’d;

  For whenas shone those eyne my heart to smite,

  I loved an unseen sight,

  And like the Spingard’s flash

  I saw Love’s figure ere his cause was seen.

  Whoso Desire with Hope would link in lien

  Blind guide he blindly takes, a low vile lache,

  But in this soul exempt from worldly law,

  I see Hope lying dead

  Thus bides Desire in stead new life to draw.

  A diamant-heart, a breast of steely plate:

  Who raveneth for my blood while I would sate

  With fiercest death-throes her inhuman thirst:

  This wise, in all things utterly different,

  Whither Fate lead I run

  And if by Death undone I die content.

  V.

  Falls he in worse defect

  Who deemeth Science certain and secure,

  That manifest Cause be sure

  Aye to engender self-conformed Effect.

  Won me one dight and deckt

  With charms, whose maiden snow,

  Reviving fires internal burns me alive:

  For this my Fair one, fere and fugitive,

  Snow gi’en she be, is surely fieriest lowe:

  Whence I infer secure (and cease the phrase

  Vain, lightsome, lie-begot)

  Snow sometimes melted not in flames that blaze

  Love, with his nightly thought, his dreaming day

  And, when Apollo leaves the sunshine-way,

  In sombrest shades I view that Nymph divine.

  Then if sans daylight Love his eyesight feed

  Blind! whoso holds untrue

  Night’s blackest hue can course of Love impede.

  VII.

  Erreth who overbold

  Preacheth the Part be greater than his Whole:

  Love so enholds my Soul,

  That in a Soul of mine I bide ensoul’d:

  From boast so brave is bred

  The dread of losing Her:

  And, albe fear to many a heart that sinks

  Depaint in phantasy Chimaera and Sphinx

  Of future evils hostile stars may stir,

  I see in self, for secret yet unknown,

  When ‘joy I most content,

  Only from welfare hent is terror grown.

  In this my tormentize so hard, so coy,

  I live to ‘noyance and I die to joy;

  And live my Senses when my Soul’s no more,

  That full assurance feel my parted Sprite

  Combine, for painfuller paining,

  Parting, Remaining, Life with Death unite.

  L’ENVOI.

  Wherefore, Canzon! infer I and believe

  That or all wonted form be disarranged

  In Nature’s firmest law,

  Or that my Nature saw its shape all changed.

  CANZON XV.

  Ine he isto? Sonho? On vejo a Ninfa pura,

  (Platonic: Of a Dream and its waking).

  I.

  What? Do I dream? Of see that Nymph all-pure

  Ever in soul I see?

  Or limns Desire for me

  The weal each hour all vainly would secure?

  Ill can the night’s Obscure,

  Loving cold sombre shade,

  Send me in fairest dreams that clearest Light

  Which shall not day be made

  By power of glancing rays wi’ radiance fired.

  O loved Sight long desired

  O’ that douce Nymph, that Star enquickening sight!

  Long o’er this Ocean have I steered my barque,

  (Sans look of lodestar) voyage drear and dark.

  The surest way you espied

  The highmost height to view,

  And Cause of this Effect you showed my soul.

  Thus Beauty’s mortal hue

  Born from Above its seat Above resumes;

  Thus lights which Heaven illumes

  There from the skies derive, there seek their goal:

  Then, as such vision can with God unite me

  Why, O my Soul! to this your Soul deny’t me?

  III.

  An would you lead me prisoner part by part

  Fair-faxed wavy Hair!

  Web me the golden snare

  Wherein dipt Vulcan Cypria and her Mart.

  And sith your gentle art

  Robeth in bloomy sheen

  Earth where your delicate sole vouchsafes to tread,

  How oft, these marvels seen,

  I wisht me a flower ‘mid these flowers grown?

  For, seeing me trodden down

  By the white feet that make the snow blush red,

  Haply mote I transform me to the flower

  Wherewith fair Flora cooled fere Juno’s stowre.

  IV.

  But where (O dear Life mine!) where be thou fled

  Lighter and fleeter than

  In shady glade e’er ran

  The Hind by hurt of gridéd arrow sped!

  An for such Parting dread

  Mine Eyes! ye oped to light,

  May everlastingest sleep your eyelids close,

  Ere that such blight ye sights

  Losing that lovely, so beloved a snare!

  Now to my deep despair

  You sight full clearly for increase of woes

  In this light vision, fugitive relief,

  There be no longer Ill than Weal so brief.

  V.

  Happy Endymion, whom the Deess dear

  Who guides the nightly race

  Enclaspt in dream-embrace!

  Ah! who fro’ Dream so sweet to wake would care?

  Sole thou, Aurore avare,

  Whenas thou smotst my sight,

  Cruel! couldst victim me for envy pure.

  But an fro’ this sad sprite

  Hope willed thee subdue the gloom forlorn,

  Know! thou wast vainly born:

  For from these Eyne to melt such mists obscure

  Perforce must I present, to sight that ceast,

  Other Sun, other Day-dawn, other East,

  L’ENVOI.

  If light my Planet showers

  Revive me not, Canzon! with soft sweet powers,

  Like rain-flowers wilted in the short sunshine

  Thou’lt sight a Life which melts in tearful brine. z 2

  CANZON XVI.

  Por meyo de humas serras muy fragosas,

  (A country piece: imitation of Gaspar Gil Polo’s Rimas

  Provenzalts).

  I.

  Mid serried Mounts, a broken, cliff-lipped height,

  Girt by
a growth of forest old and hoar,

  Waking the rugged rocks with reflect roar,

  Flow these perennial fountains of delight:

  The stream Bui’na hight and eke its vale

  (A far-famed dale,

  For-that its mead

  Is ‘namelled

  With freshest views

  Of verdant hues),

  Show a so goodly sight, such views amene,

  The scene exceedeth every fairest scene:

  Here birds go winging,

  By thousands singing,

  While fledgelings play

  On every spray,

  Whose softest concert of song-melodies

  Serenes the winds and gentles every breeze.

  III.

  From this bough Nightingale shrills loudly sweet,

  From that respondeth Linnet’s lively strain;

  Dame Partridge, who in holt hath refuge tane;

  Hearing the hunter flusheth fast and fleet —

  Fleeter and faster than the wanton wind —

  For she would find

  Some safer ground;

  But ‘ere ’tis found

  The while she hurries

  And chuckling scurries

  Faster the fatal bolt behind her flieth,

  Wherewith she wounded droopeth, droppeth, dieth.

  By snare and sleight

  To harm and fright

  The evil-fated,

  Whenas amated

  By sparsely scattered grains of golden corn,

  Into the foeman’s hand she fall forlorn.

  V.

  Here Challander trolleth from the crucified vine

  The Ring-dove moaneth, chattereth the Stare;

  The snowy Culver fast from nest doth fare

  The Throstle percheth high on olive-tine:

  Outtroop with murmurous hum the honey-bees,

  And haste to seize

  Their dewy store,

  All fresh and frore,

  O’er meadow sheen

  Adorned with green,

  Whence they the fragrant golden Drink distil

  Given to mankind by Aristaeus’ skill.

  The stony pellets,

  The conchs and shell-lets

  Rubicund,

  Which the jocund

  Wavelets bear ‘flood-wards with their rattling flow

  And, surging soft, o’er blanched strands bestrow.

  VII.

  Here ‘mid the fanged ranges start for flight

  The Calydonian beast, the stag, the deer,

  Nor can their swiftness stay their panick fear

  Whom their own sounding falls of foot affright.

  Flies scudding Rabbit, tricksy Levret flies

  Her form, that lies

  Beneath the bracken,

  Where comes a trackin’

  The light-foot Lyme;

  And many a time,

  Ere by her fervid enemy overtane,

  She leaves her follower following in vain.

  Here, eke, doth Flora

  — Ever restore a