Canto 13The Lover’s Complaint
Book 1. Part One - England and Baroda 1883 – 1898
O plaintive, murmuring reed, begin thy strain;
Unloose that heavenly tongue,
Interpreter divine of pain;
Utter thy voice, the sister of my song.
5Thee in the silver waters growing,
Arcadian Pan, strange whispers blowing
Into thy delicate stops, did teach
A language lovelier than speech.
Songs to Myrtilla
10O plaintive, murmuring reed, begin thy strain;
O plaintive, murmuring reed.
Nisa to Mopsus is decreed,
The moonwhite Nisa to a swarthy swain.
What love-gift now shall Hope not bring?
15Election dwells no more with beauty’s king.
The wild weed now has wed the rose,
Now ivy on the bramble grows;
Too happy lover, fill the lamp of bliss!
Too happy lover, drunk with Nisa’s kiss!
20For thee pale Cynthia leaves her golden car,
For thee from Tempe stoops the white and evening star.
O plaintive, murmuring reed, renew thy strain;
O solace anguish yet again.
I thought Love soft as velvet sleep,
25Sweeter than dews nocturnal breezes weep,
Cool as water in a murmuring pass
And shy as violets in the vernal grass,
But hard as Nisa’s heart is he
And salt as the unharvestable sea.
30O plaintive, murmuring reed, renew thy strain.
One morn she came; her mouth
Breathing the odours of the south,
With happy eyes and heaving bosom fain.
She asked for fruit long-stored in autumn’s hold.
35These gave I; from the branch dislodged I threw
Sweet-hearted apples in their age of gold
And pears divine for taste and hue.
And one I saw, should all the rest excel;
But error led my plucking hand astray
40And with a sudden sweet dismay
My heart into her apron fell.
O plaintive, murmuring reed, renew thy strain.
My bleeding heart awhile
She kept and bloomed upon its pain,
45Then slighted as a broken thing and vile.
Now Mopsus in his unblest arms,
Mopsus enfolds her heavenlier charms,
Mopsus to whom the Muse averse
Refused her gracious secrets to rehearse.
50O plaintive, murmuring reed, breathe yet thy strain.
Ye glades, your bliss I grudge you not,
Nor would I that my grief profane
Your sacred summer with intruding thought.
Yet since I will no more behold
55Your glorious beauty stained with gold
From shadows of her hair, nor by some well
Made naked of their sylvan dress
The breasts, the limbs I never shall possess,
Therefore, O mother Arethuse, farewell.
60For me no place abides
By the green verge of thy belov`ed tides.
To Lethe let my footsteps go
And wailing waters in the realms below,
Where happier song is none than moaning pain
65Nor any lovelier Syrinx than the weed.
Child of the lisping waters, hush thy strain,
O murmuring, plaintive reed.