Torquato Tasso

“ The grass is the lamb's food, the lamb the wolf's;
But cruel love delights to feed on tears,
And seems to satiate never.
AMYNTAS.
⁠Alas! Alas!
Love has drained all my tears; it is my blood
Which he must thirst for now. I hope and trust,
He and this impious one will have it shortly.
THYRSIS.
Amyntas! dear Amyntas! talk not so:
'Tis idle. Take good heart. This cruel one
May treat thee ill; but thou can'st find another.
AMYNTAS.
Ah me, another! I have lost myself.
How can I find me joy, myself being gone?
THYRSIS.
Do not despair. Thou'lt win her heart at last. ”

“ Shepherds and nymphs, sat playing at the game,
In which they tell in one another's ears
Their secret each, "Sylvia," said I in her's,
"I burn for thee; and if thou help me not,
I feel I cannot live." ”

“ With like good sense, their water and their acorns
As exquisite meat and drink; but now-a-days
Water and acorns are but food for beasts;
And grain and the sweet grape sustain humanity.
Ah! hadst thou once, but once,
Tasted a thousandth part of the delight
Which a heart tastes that loves and is beloved,
Thou wouldst repent, and sigh, and say directly,
‘Tis all but loss of time
That passes not in loving.
O seasons fled and gone,
How many widowed nights,
And solitary days
Which might have been wrapt round with this sweet life,
Have I consumed in vain!
A life, the more habituate, the more sweet! ”

“ The lion's great heart loves; and thou alone,
Wilder than all the wild,
Deniest the boy a lodging in thy breast.
But why speak I of tygers, snakes, and lions,
Who have their share of mind? The very trees
Are loving. See with what affection there,
And in how many a clinging turn and twine,
The vine holds fast its husband. Fir loves fir,
The pine the pine; and ash, and willow, and beech,
Each toward the other, yearns, and sighs, and trembles.
That oak tree which appears
So rustic and so rough,
Even that has something warm in its sound heart ”

“ Sylvia, the forest's honour, the soul's firer?
Of her I speak. Alas! I lived one time,
So fastened to her side, that never turtle
Was closer to his mate, nor ever will be.
Our homes were close together, closer still
Our hearts; our age conformable, our thoughts
Still more conformed. ”

“ Things as they are not, aye, and hear them too.
That which shall seem pure diamond and fine gold,
Is glass and brass; and coffers that look silver,
Heavy with wealth, are baskets full of bladders.
The very walls there are so strangely made,
They answer those who talk; and not in syllables,
Or bits of words, like Echo in our woods,
But go the whole talk over, word for word,
With something else beside, that no one said.
The tressels, tables, bedsteads, curtains, lockers,
Chairs, and whatever furniture there is
In room or bed-room, all have tongues and speech,
And are for ever tattling. ”

“ And should a dumb man enter in that place,
The dumb would babble in his own despite.
And yet this evil is the least of all
That might assail thee. Thou mightest be arrested
In fearful transformation to a willow,
A beast, fire, water,—fire for ever sighing,
Water for ever weeping." Here he ceased:
And I, with all this fine foreknowledge, went
To the great city, and by heaven's kind will,
Came where they live so happily. The first sound
I heard was a delightful harmony,
Which issued forth, of voices loud and sweet:
Syrens, and swans, and nymphs, a heavenly noise
Of heavenly things ”