Canto 17Envoi
Book 1. Part One - England and Baroda 1883 – 1898
Songs to Myrtilla
Envoi
Ite hinc, Camenae, vos quoque ite jam, sane
Dulces Camenae, nam fatebimur verum
5Dulces fuistis, et tamen meas chartas
Revisitote sed pudenter et raro.
Pale poems, weak and few, who vainly use
Your wings towards the unattainable spheres,
Offspring of the divine Hellenic Muse,
10Poor maim`ed children born of six disastrous years!
Not as your mother’s is your wounded grace,
Since not to me with equal love returned
The hope which drew me to that serene face
Wherein no unreposeful light of effort burned.
15Depart and live for seasons many or few
If live you may, but stay not here to pain
My heart with hopeless passion and renew
Visions of beauty that my lips shall ne’er attain.
For in Sicilian olive-groves no more
20Or seldom must my footprints now be seen,
Nor tread Athenian lanes, nor yet explore
Parnassus or thy voiceful shores, O Hippocrene.
Me from her lotus heaven Saraswati
Has called to regions of eternal snow
25And Ganges pacing to the southern sea,
Ganges upon whose shores the flowers of Eden blow.