Though many years have passed, and loves, I swear
I can still smell the soaps this one would use.
I can still see the mole on her left thigh,
black eden lace against her northern skin.

And I recall the thong straps she would wear,
the camisoles and fishnets she would choose,
brown archipelago in her blue eye,
and how she opened doors and let me in.

My lover in her room—a universe
of small particulars: the way she moaned,
the way she hinted which of us was worse,

my lust-shorn shorts beside the book she'd loaned,

AH, how sweet it is to love!
Ah, how gay is young Desire!
And what pleasing pains we prove
When we first approach Love's fire!
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.

Sighs which are from lovers blown
Do but gently heave the heart:
Ev'n the tears they shed alone
Cure, like trickling balm, their smart:
Lovers, when they lose their breath,
Bleed away in easy death.

Love and Time with reverence use,
Treat them like a parting friend;
Nor the golden gifts refuse

AH, how sweet it is to love!
   Ah, how gay is young Desire!
And what pleasing pains we prove
   When we first approach Love's fire!
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.

Sighs which are from lovers blown
   Do but gently heave the heart:
Ev'n the tears they shed alone
   Cure, like trickling balm, their smart:
Lovers, when they lose their breath,
Bleed away in easy death.

Love and Time with reverence use,

You ask, my love, about my tears
But don't you recognize the fears
That agonize my heart?
Were not your infidelity
Torturing me so cruelly
My sorrows would depart

How can your lovers joyful be
If practicing idolatry
Is just like loving you?
If this your real nature is
What wounded heart can find release?
What medicine will do?

I sense, that you have turned aside
I suffer from my rivals' pride
I'm killed in either way,
If one makes love to Plato's tune
To me he'll always be Manjun
Tomorrow as today

Full oft you're plaining that in age
Our faculties and feelings die.
And it may be that thinkers sage
Do think like you. Yet plain not I.
When sick we've grown of pride and show,
Why should our striving strength live on?
Or why should love forbear to go,
When all we cared to love—are gone?

*


Hence Cupid! with your cheating toys,
Your real griefs, and painted joys,
Your pleasure which itself destroys.
Lovers like men in fevers burn and rave,
And only what will injure them do crave.
Men's weakness makes love so severe,
They give him power by their fear,
And make the shackles which they wear.
Who to another does his heart submit,
Makes his own idol, and then worships it.
Him whose heart is all his own,
Peace and liberty does crown,
He apprehends no killing frown.

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.


Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

JUST to live under green leaves and see them
Just to lie under low stars and watch them wane,
Just to sleep by a kind heart and know it loving
Again–

Just to wake on a sunny day and the wind blowing,
Just to walk on a bare road in the bright rain,–
These, O God, and the night, and the moon showing
Again–

After you speak
And what you meant
Is plain,
My eyes
Meet yours that mean,
With your cheeks and hair,
Something more wise,
More dark,
And far different.
Even so the lark
Loves dust
And nestles in it
The minute
Before he must
Soar in lone flight
So far,
Like a black star
He seems -
A mote
Of singing dust
Afloat
Above,
The dreams
And sheds no light.
I know your lust
Is love.