 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
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XXII. FROM PETRARCH.
That nightingale which wails with such sweet woeHaply its young ones, haply its dear mate,
Fills the dark heavens and makes the fields overflow
With its wild, broken chaunt disconsolate:
Beside me all night long, where'er I go,
Its dirge upbraids me with my own sad fate,
And chides my blindness which refused to know
That Death divine things too can subjugate.
Ah! easy 'tis to cheat the self-deluded!
Yet who had ever dreamed those sunlike eyes
Setting, should leave the world in darkness shrouded?
But I my pain's high mission recognise:
It means that I should weep and live, and so
Learn that delight abides not here below!
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |