ROMANCE
by: Luis de Argote y Góngora
(1561-1627)
- HE loveliest
girl in all our country-side,
- To-day forsaken, yesterday a bride,
- Seeing her love ride forth to join the wars,
- With breaking heart and trembling lip implores:
- "My hope is dead, my tears are blinding me,
- Oh let me walk alone where breaks the sea!
-
- "You told me, Mother, what too well I know,
- How grief is long, and joy is quick to go,
- But you have given him my heart that he
- Might hold it captive with love's bitter key,--
- My hope is dead, my tears are blinding me.
-
- "My eyes are dim, that once were full of grace,
- And ever bright with gazing on his face,
- But now the tears come hot and never cease,
- Since he is gone in whom my heart found peace,
- My hope is dead, my tears are blinding me.
-
- "Then do not seek to stay my grief, nor yet
- To blame a sin my heart must needs forget;
- For though blame were spoken in good part,
- Yet speak it not, lest you should break my heart.
- My hope is dead, my tears are blinding me.
-
- "Sweet Mother mine, who would not weep to see
- The glad years of my youth so quickly flee,
- Although his heart were flint, his breast a stone?
- Yet here I stand, forsaken and alone,
- My hope is dead, my tears are blinding me.
-
- "And still may night avoid my lonely bed,
- Now that my eyes are dull, my soul is dead.
- Since he is gone for whom they vigil keep,
- Too long is night, my tears are blinding me,
- Oh let me walk alone where breaks the sea!"
--Translated by John Pierrepont Rice
"Romance" is reprinted
from Hispanic Anthology: Poems Translated from the Spanish
by English and North American Poets. Ed. Thomas Walsh. New
York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1920. |
MORE POEMS BY LUIS DE ARGOTE Y GÓNGORA |
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