No. 38.
With song I seek my fate to cheer,
As doth the swan when death draws near;
Youth's roses from my cheeks retire,
My heart is worn with fond desire.
Since care and woe increase and grow, while
light burns low,
Poor wretch I die!
Heigho! I die, poor wretch I die!
Constrained to love, unloved; such luck have I!
If she could love me whom I love,
I would not then exchange with Jove:
Ah! might I clasp her once, and drain
Her lips as thirsty flowers drink rain!
With death to meet, his welcome greet, from
life retreat,
I were full fain!
Heigho! full fain, I were full fain,
Could I such joy, such wealth of pleasure gain!
When I bethought me of her breast,
Those hills of snow my fancy pressed;
Longing to touch them with my hand,
Love's laws I then did understand.
Rose of the south, blooms on her mouth; I felt
love's drouth
That mouth to kiss!
Heigho! to kiss, that mouth to kiss!
Lost in day-dreams and vain desires of bliss.
The next is the indignant repudiation by a lover of the calumny that
he has proved unfaithful to his mistress. The strongly marked double
rhymes of the original add peculiar vehemence to his protestations;
while the abundance of cheap mythological allusions is emphatically
Goliardic.