Ah, well can I the day recall, when first
The conflict fierce of love I felt, and said:
If this be love, how hard it is to bear!

With eyes still fixed intent upon the ground,
I saw but her, whose artless innocence,
Triumphant took possession of this heart.

Ah, Love, how badly hast thou governed me!
Why should affection so sincere and pure,
Bring with it such desire, such suffering?

Why not serene, and full, and free from guile
But sorrow-laden, and lamenting sore,
Should joy so great into my heart descend?

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.

O fair is Love's first hope to gentle mind!
As Eve's first star thro' fleecy cloudlet peeping;
And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind,
O'er willowy meads and shadowed waters creeping,
And Ceres' golden fields;-the sultry hind
Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping.

Oh! May sits crowned with hawthorn-flower,
And is Love's month, they say;
And Love's the fruit that is ripened best
By ladies' eyes in May.

Now it's over, and now it's done;
Why does everything look the same?
Just as bright, the unheeding sun, --
Can't it see that the parting came?
People hurry and work and swear,
Laugh and grumble and die and wed,
Ponder what they will eat and wear, --
Don't they know that our love is dead?

Just as busy, the crowded street;
Cars and wagons go rolling on,
Children chuckle, and lovers meet, --
Don't they know that our love is gone?
No one pauses to pay a tear;
None walks slow, for the love that's through, --

These lips of thine really bear similarity
with the beauty of flower Bandhū ka.
O Self-esteemed Lady!
Thy comely cheeks compile the lustres of Madhū ka.
Manifesting the beauty
of blue lotuses, thy eyes are very lovely.
The stature of Tila flower, thy nose bears.
Thy teeth, O My Dear!
spread the radiance of Kunda flower.
Serving thy fine face with these five flowers,
the Flower-shafted Love-god Cupid
conquers the entire universe indeed.

The consciousness of my mortality
Which used to blind and limit all my life
Weighs on me not since I have been your wife.
Death is the price of our felicity;
And life eternal would not leave us free
To love each other thus, setting above
The grace of God, a common human love,
Untouched, unthreatened by any heaven to be.
For who, while waiting to be crowned a king
Can relish all the humble every day?
Who but must hasten when she sets a goal?
For me, I could not make our life a thing
So wise, so real, so tender and so gay

Now fie on foolish love, it not befits
Or man or woman know it.
Love was not meant for people in their wits,
And they that fondly show it
Betray the straw, and features in their brain,
And shall have Bedlam for their pain:
If simple love be such a curse,
To marry is to make it ten times worse.

Man frames his judgment on reason; but woman on love founds her verdict;
If her judgment loves not, woman already has judged.

WHAT shall be said between us here
Among the downs, between the trees,
In fields that knew our feet last year,
In sight of quiet sands and seas,
This year, Félise?

Who knows what word were best to say?
For last year’s leaves lie dead and red
On this sweet day, in this green May,
And barren corn makes bitter bread.
What shall be said?

Here as last year the fields begin,
A fire of flowers and glowing grass;
The old fields we laughed and lingered in,
Seeing each our souls in last year’s glass,
Félise, alas!