On leaving Coimbra and the object of his love.
WEET waters of Mondego's stream refined,
Of my remembrances the sweet repose, Where hope perfidious and protracted rose,
And led me long time, following, all blind :
Yes, I depart, but fain must own, my mind
Fond memory still o'ertakes, and with me goes,
Nor suffers aught of change to interpose;
The farther moved, the more I stay behind.
Well may this dwelling of the soul be brought
By Fortune to some new and foreign sphere,
Committed to the wind and sea remote;
But the fond soul that clings to you from here,
Oh! waters, on the wings of rapid thought
Flies to your stream again and bathes it there.
As prisões de um coração que canta ao som dos ferros.
RESENCA bella, angelica figura,
Em quem quanto o Ceo tinha nos tem dado,
Gesto alegre de rosas semeado,
Entre as quaes se está rindo a formosura :
Olhos, onde tem feito tal mistura
Em crystal puro o negro marchetado,
Que vemos ja no verde delicado
Não esperança, mas inveja escura :
Brandura, aviso, e graça, que augmentando
A natural belleza co'hum desprêzo,
Com que mais desprezada mais se augmenta :
Sam as prizões de hum coração, que prêzo,
Seu mal ao som dos ferros vai cantando,
Como faz a serêa na tormenta.
The chains of a heart which sings to the sound of the
fetters.
AIR presence, figure as an angel's fair,
Where Heaven hath given us all that is its own,
A beaming countenance with roses sown,
And, in the cluster, Beauty laughing there;
Eyes with a blended marquetry so rare,
In jewelled black and purest whiteness shown,
That by the delicate green must now be known
Not hope,* but jealousy's forbidding air;
Gentleness, sense and grace, that brighter show
Their natural beauty by indifference' vein-
The more the indifference still the more the
Are fetters of a heart that, prisoner ta'en, [charm--
Sings to their iron clank its captive woe,
E'en like the mermaid singing to the storm.
ROME, July 1880.
* Green, in Portuguese, is the colour for Hope.
Escripto no mar, indo para Goa, depois de uma despedida dolorosa.
OR cima destas águas forte e firme
Irei aonde os Fados o ordenáram,
Pois por cima de quantas derramáram
Aquelles claros olhos pude vir-me.
Ja chegado era o fim de despedir-me;
Ja mil impedimentos se acabáram,
Quando rios de amor se atravessáram
A me impedir o passo de partir-me.
Passei-os eu com ânimo obstinado,
Com que a morte forçada gloriosa
Faz o vencido ja desesperado.
Em qual figura, ou gesto desusado,
Pode ja fazer medo a morte irosa
A quem tee a seus pés rendido e atado?
Written at sea, sailing for Goa, after a mournful separation.
VER these waters firm and strong I'll
Whither the Fates my passage have ordained,
For o'er those waters have I been sustained
That poured from those bright eyes with ceaseless
The hour had sounded of the parting vow; [flow.
Nought of a thousand hindrances remained,
When streams of love my steps would have re-
Flowing across my path to bid me-no. [strained,
I passed them all, with that firm will defied
Wherewith, when forced a glorious death to die,
The vanquished, all despair, his fate will meet.
With what new shape, what gesture yet untried,
Can angry death pretend to terrify
Whom he holds bound and prostrate at his feet?
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