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Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

Год написания книги
2017
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The blooming stranger cried;
"And this is Mercy by my side,
A dame of high degree;
This maid is Chastity," he said,
"This squire is Loyalty."

THE LOVE OF GOD.[23 - The original of these lines is thus given by John of Nostradamus, in his Lives of the Troubadours, in a barbarous Frenchified orthography:"Touta kausa mortala una fes perirá,Fors que l'amour de Dieu, que touiours durará.Tous nostres cors vendran essuchs, come fa l'eska,Lous Aubres leyssaran lour verdour tendra e fresca,Lous Ausselets del bosc perdran lour kant subtyeu,E non s'auzira plus lou Rossignol gentyeu.Lous Buols al Pastourgage, e las blankas fedettasSent'ran lous agulhons de las mortals Sagettas,Lous crestas d'Aries fiers, Renards, e Loups esparsKabrols, Cervys, Chamous, Senglars de toutes pars,Lous Ours hardys e forts, seran poudra, e Arena.Lou Daulphin en la Mar, lou Ton, e la Balena,Monstres impetuous, Ryaumes, e Comtas,Lous Princes, e lous Reys, seran per mort domtas.E nota ben eysso káscun: la Terra granda,(Ou l'Escritura ment) lou fermament que branda,Prendra autra figura. Enfin tout perirá,Fors que l'Amour de Dieu, que touiours durará."]

FROM THE PROVENÇAL OF BERNARD RASCAS

All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.
The forms of men shall be as they had never been;
The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green;
The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song,
And the nightingale shall cease to chant the evening long;
The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills,
And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills.
The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox,
The wild-boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks,
And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie;
And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die.
And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more,
And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore;
And the great globe itself, so the holy writings tell,
With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell,
Shall melt with fervent heat – they shall all pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.

FROM THE SPANISH OF PEDRO DE CASTRO Y AÑAYA.[24 - Las Auroras de Diana, in which the original of these lines is contained, is, notwithstanding it was praised by Lope de Vega, one of the worst of the old Spanish Romances, being a tissue of riddles and affectations, with now and then a little poem of considerable beauty.]

Stay rivulet, nor haste to leave
The lovely vale that lies around thee.
Why wouldst thou be a sea at eve,
When but a fount the morning found thee?

Born when the skies began to glow,
Humblest of all the rock's cold daughters,
No blossom bowed its stalk to show
Where stole thy still and scanty waters.

Now on the stream the noonbeams look,
Usurping, as thou downward driftest,
Its crystal from the clearest brook,
Its rushing current from the swiftest.

Ah! what wild haste! – and all to be
A river and expire in ocean.
Each fountain's tribute hurries thee
To that vast grave with quicker motion.

Far better 'twere to linger still
In this green vale, these flowers to cherish,
And die in peace, an aged rill,
Than thus, a youthful Danube, perish.

SONNET

FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF SEMEDO

It is a fearful night; a feeble glare
Streams from the sick moon in the o'erclouded sky;
The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry,
Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare;
No bark the madness of the waves will dare;
The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high.
Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die,
Who gazes on thy smiles while I despair?
As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried,
I turned, and saw my Laura, kind and bright,
A messenger of gladness, at my side;
To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light,
And as we furrowed Tago's heaving tide,
I never saw so beautiful a night.

SONG

FROM THE SPANISH OF IGLESIAS

Alexis calls me cruel:
The rifted crags that hold
The gathered ice of winter,
He says, are not more cold.

When even the very blossoms
Around the fountain's brim,
And forest-walks, can witness
The love I bear to him.

I would that I could utter
My feelings without shame,
And tell him how I love him,
Nor wrong my virgin fame.

Alas! to seize the moment
When heart inclines to heart,
And press a suit with passion,
Is not a woman's part.

If man come not to gather
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