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As for me, I have hung up the dripping garments

In which I nearly drowned while in your arms.

46

Tell me, Lydia, why strong Sybaris

Shuns the sun-drenched field of exercise,

Why he rides no more among his comrades,

Mastering his Gallic stallion with iron bit?

Why does he avoid the yellow Tiber’s foam,

Why does he neglect to oil his limbs

For the wrestling-ground,

Or show his arms bruised with weapon practice,

He who once threw the discus, the javelin,

Further than all?

Is this the work of love, Lydia,

Or just the work of your charms?

47

It is poetry’s will that I celebrate her,

Her bright darting eyes, her breast faithful to mutual love;

Who can with grace step into the dance

Or join arms with the virgins of the festival?

Would anyone change a single tress of her hair

For all the riches of Achaemenes,

Or the wealth of fertile Phrygia?

Especially when she turns her neck to meet your burning kisses,

Or with gentle cruelty denies what she would

With more delight

Have ravished than the petitioner:

And sometimes eagerly embraces for herself?

48

The caged bird owes no allegiance.

Where tonight she lies, no one can give us news;

Nor any knows, save the watching moon.

The wall is low around my garden;

The lists in the bailiff’s lodge are seldom checked.

Were we sometimes unkind?

When the shadows thickened among the pines

She crept away, concealed by silence.

The caged bird owes no allegiance,

The wind-tossed flower does not cling to the tree.

Where she lies tonight, no one can give us news;

Nor any knows, save the watching moon.

49

The mountain path is covered in fallen leaves,

So many, so many.

Looking for my lost lover I cannot find the path,

Walking the path I am like a boat in water,

Leaving no track behind.

Between the branches I see the evening sky;

When I gaze into the clouds I see

The smoke of her funeral pyre.

Our former life is now a dream;

The house we left

Has become a home for wildflowers and butterflies;

And its walls are covered in ivy.

50

Look to today.

You remember yesterday,

You envision tomorrow,

Today you live.

Live well today,

Yesterday is a good memory,

Tomorrow a good hope.

Neglect today,

Yesterday is remorse,

Tomorrow a trial.

51

Still and clear, the first weeks of May,

When trees are green and bushes soft and wet;

When the wind has stolen the shadows of new leaves

And birds linger on the last boughs that bloom.

Towards evening as the sky grew clearer yet

And the south-east was still clothed in red,

To the highest terrace we carried our jar of wine;

While we waited for the moon, our cups moved slow.

Soon, soon her golden shape rose from the forest in the east,

Swiftly, as though she had waited for us to come.

The beams of her light shone in every place,

On towers and halls dancing to and fro.

Till day broke we sat in her clear light

Laughing, singing, yet never growing tired.

In the city, where men scramble for profit and fame,

How many know such nights as this?

52

At my closed door autumn grasses grow.

What could I do to ease a rustic heart?

I planted trees, more than a hundred saplings.

When I see their beauty, as they grow by the stream-side,

I feel again as though I lived in the hills,

And many a time on public holidays

Round their railing I walk till night comes.

Do not say that their roots are still weak,

Do not say that their shade is still small;

Already I feel both in garden and house

Day by day a fresher air moves.

But most I love, lying at my window,

To hear in their branches the murmur of the breeze.

53

Green spring receives the vacant earth;

The white sun shines;

Spring wind provokes each sprout and flower

To burst and burgeon anew.

Do not hide in those dark caves where winter lurks, my thoughts!

O thoughts come back again! Do not stray!

Come back again:

Go not east or west, north or south!

O thoughts go not east,

For eastward a mighty water drowns earth’s other shore;

Tossed on its waves and heaving with its tides

The nameless terrors