Loved beauty, who afar,
Or hiding thy sweet face,
Inspirest me with amorous delight,
Unless in slumberous night,
A sacred shade my dreamy visions trace
Or when the day doth grace
Our verdant meads and fair is Nature's smile:
The age, devoid of guile,
Perchance thou blessedst, which we golden style,
And now amid the race
Of men thou fliest, light as shadows are,
Ethereal soul? Or did beguiling Fate
Bid thee, veiled from our eyes, the future times await?
To gaze on thee alive
The hope henceforth is flown,
Unless that time when naked and alone
Upon new paths unto a dwelling strange
My spirit shall proceed. When dawn did rive
The early clouds of my tempestuous day,
Methought thou wouldst upon earth's barren soil
Be the companion of mine arduous range.
But there is nought we on our globe survey
Resembling thee; and if with careful toil
We could discover any like to thee,
She would less beauteous be,
Though much of thine in face, in limb, and voice we'd see.
Amid the floods of woe
That Fate hath given to our years below,
If son of man thy beauty did adore,
Even such as I conceive it in my mind,
He would existence, so unblessed before,
Sweet and delightful find;
And clearly doth to me my spirit tell
That I to praise and glory would aspire,
As in mine early years, for love of thee.
But Heaven hath not deemed well
To grant a solace to our misery;
And linked to thee, existence would acquire
Such beauty as on high doth bless the heavenly choir.
Amid the shady vale
Where sounds the rustic song
Of the laborious tiller of the soil,
Where seated I bewail
The youthful error that was with me long,
But now doth far recoil;
And on the hills where I, remembering, weep
The lost desires and the departed hope
Of my sad days, the thought of thee doth keep
My heart from death, and gives life further scope.
Could I in this dark age and evil air,
Preserve thine image in my soul most deep,
'Twere joy enough, for truth can never be our share.
If an eternal thought
Thou art, whom ne'er with mortal, fragile frame
Eternal Wisdom suffers to be fraught,
Or to become the prey
Of all the sorrows of death-bringing life;
Or if another globe,
Amid the innumerable worlds that flame
On high when Night displays her dusky robe,
Thy beauty doth convey;
Or star, near neighbour of the sun, doth leave
Its light on thee while gentler breezes play:
From where the days are short and dark with strife,
This hymn of an unknown adorer, oh receive!