Tis sad to go a-roving
Through the weary world alone,
For the bliss of life is loving,
Ere the days of youth are flown
And old age is Love's undoing,
Passion fades away with time,
So we'll go again a-wooing,
While our hearts are in their prime.
So we'll go again a-wooing, &c. &c.

The frowns of Fortune grieve us,
And Ambition is a cheat,
And the lures of Hope deceive us,
Though her visions are so sweet.
Love alone, her roses strewing,
Smooths our pathway as we climb,
So we'll go again a-wooing,

O roads, O paths, O ways that lead
Through woods where all the oak-trees bleed
With autumn! and the frosty reds
Of fallen leaves make whispering beds
For winds to toss and turn upon,
Like restless Care that can not sleep,
Beneath whose rustling tatters wan
The last wildflow'r is buried deep:
One way of all I love to wend,
That towards the golden sunset goes,
A way, o'er which the red leaf blows,
With an old gateway at its end,
Where Summer, that my soul o'erflows,
My summer of love, blooms like a wildwood rose.

II.

It always comes, and when it comes they know.
To will it is enough to bring them there.
The knack is this, to fasten and not let go.

Their limbs are charmed; they cannot stay or go.
Desire is limbo: they¼re unhappy there.
It always comes, and when it comes they know.

Their choice of hells would be the one they know.
Dante describes it, the wind circling there.
The knack is this, to fasten and not let go.

The wind carries them where they want to go.
Yet it seems cruel to strangers passing there.

Sweet lies! the sweetest ever heard,
To her he said:
Her heart remembers every word
Now he is dead.

I ask:' If thus his lies can make
Your young heart grieve for his false sake,
Had he been true what had you done
For true love's sake?'

'Upon his grave there in the sun,
Avoided now of all but one,
I'd lay my heart with all its ache,
And let it break, and let it break.'

And falsehood! fairer ne'er was seen
Than he put on:
Her heart recalls each look and mien
Now he is gone.

I ask: 'If thus his treachery

'Tis morn: o'er Kyburg's castled crag day's first faint streak appears,
Like the ray of Truth through Error's mists, or the smile through Woman's tears;
With gradual step it glides along, from cloud to cloud, and now
Bathes in a flood of living light Mongarten's frowning brow.
The sun looks out, the heavens are gay, the earth beneath them shines,
And the fitful breeze hath ceased to toss yon broad, black sea of pines;
The storm that lately ravaged earth hath sunk into its lair,
And left œa scene of power to charm all sadness save despair!

'Dearly loved, devoted Sita! daughter of a royal line,
Part we now, for years of wand'ring in the pathless woods is mine,

For my father, promise-fettered, to Kaikeyi yields the sway,
And she wills her son anointed,-fourteen years doth Rama stray,

But before I leave thee, Sita, in the wilderness to rove,
Yield me one more tender token of thy true and trustful love!

Serve my crownéd brother, Sita, as a faithful, duteous dame,
Tell him not of Rama's virtues, tell him not of Rama's claim,

I knew not what thy failings were,
Thy faults I did not see,
I only felt I loved thee well,
And thou wert true to me.
I shunned amid life's busy croud
Those who would thee defame,
It only pained a trusting heart
To hear them idly blame.
I would not heed when meddling friends
Would whisper aught of thee,
I thought not one so seeming true
Could e'er a traitor be.
And then they knew not of the tone
Of love and tond caress,
That would my soul responsive move
With its great tenderness.
Nor how my hungry, aching heart

A maiden meek, with solemn, steadfast eyes,
Full of eternal constancy and faith,
And smiling lips, through whose soft portal sighs
Truth's holy voice, with every balmy breath,
So journeys she along life's crowded way,
Keeping her soul's sweet counsel from all sight;
Nor pomp, nor vanity, lead her astray,
Nor aught that men call dazzling, fair, or bright:
For pity, sometimes, doth she pause, and stay
Those whom she meeteth mourning, for her heart
Knows well in suffering how to bear its part.
Patiently lives she through each dreary day,

Now I've come to know -
I am a woman of weakness.
My soft beauty of winds
Makes me lose to everyone.

But why does my heart
Itself grows so tender?
And why do my dusky eyes
Well up suddenly with tears?

To lose myself fully,
To trust the shades of a tall tree,
To lie down there silently,
Why do my longings grow in the web of love?

Woman, you are love incarnated
Under the silver mountain of faith.
Keep on flowing like a river of nectar
On the beautiful bed of life.

-tr. Ravi Kopra

*****

That is my window. Just now
I have so softly wakened.
I thought that I would float.
How far does my life reach,
and where does the night begin

I could think that everything
was still me all around;
transparent like a crystal's
depths, darkened, mute.

I could keep even the stars
within me; so immense
my heart seems to me; so willingly
it let him go again.

whom I began perhaps to love, perhaps to hold.
Like something strange, undreamt-of,
my fate now gazes at me.

For what, then, am I stretched out