"Lieti fiori e felici."
O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers!
'Mid which my queen her gracious footstep sets;
O plain, that keep'st her words for amulets
And hold'st her memory in thy leafy bowers!
O trees, with earliest green of spring-time hours,
And spring-time's pale and tender violets!
O grove, so dark the proud sun only lets
His blithe rays gild the outskirts of your towers!
O pleasant country-side! O purest stream,
That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear,
And of their living light can catch the beam!
I envy you her haunts so close and dear.
There is no rock so senseless but I deem
It burns with passion that to mine is near.
Goethe compared translators to carriers, who convey good wine to
market, though it gets unaccountably watered by the way. The more one
praises a poem, the more absurd becomes one's position, perhaps, in
trying to translate it. If it is so admirable--is the natural
inquiry,--why not let it alone? It is a doubtful blessing to the human
race, that the instinct of translation still prevails, stronger than
reason; and after one has once yielded to it, then each untranslated
favorite is like the trees round a backwoodsman's clearing, each of
which stands, a silent defiance, until he has cut it down. Let us try
the axe again. This is to Laura singing.