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Translated by William Vaughan
WHATE’ER I ’ve seen beneath the stars, | |
| Where fruitful climes abound; | |
| Of social youths, and streaming jars, | |
| When mirth and wine go round: | |
| All these are only found compleat | 5 |
| In fair Mervinia’s sweet retreat. | |
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| Mervinia’s rocks perhaps are seen | |
| To threaten want and dearth; | |
| Cold and barren, void of green, | |
| Yet full of joy and mirth; | 10 |
| Who thinks the nightingale to hear | |
| On mountains chanting all the year? | |
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| Where greater beauty can you find? | |
| Each villager has charms! | |
| Discretion ’s to the housewife joined, | 15 |
| The pleased beholder warms: | |
| In thee, Mervinia, dwell the fair, | |
| Who rule all hearts, or cause despair! | |
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| How bright ’s the salmon in the stream! | |
| How beautiful the thrush! | 20 |
| With wing expanded seems to gleam, | |
| All spangling in the bush: | |
| And yet how far the maids excel, | |
| Who in Mervinia’s valleys dwell? | |
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| As sweet as to the feathered kind | 25 |
| To range through every grove; | |
| As sweet as to the infant-mind | |
| To sip the milk they love; | |
| Could I, I would explore to thee, | |
| How sweet, Mervinia, thou ’rt to me. | 30 |
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| O tuneful harp! melodious sound! | |
| When friends united are; | |
| The odes alternately go round, | |
| Unthinking of the miser’s care. | |
| How sweet their voices round the fire, | 35 |
| When fair Mervinians join the lyre! | |
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| Although in pleasure’s maze I ’m lost, | |
| And range new joys to find; | |
| Command what seas and land can boast, | |
| Uneasy ’s still my mind: | 40 |
| To thee, Mervinia, I ’ll return, | |
| My soul for thee doth ever burn. | |
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