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Translated by Louisa Stuart Costello
ABOVE, upon the mountains, | |
| A shepherd, full of thought, | |
| Beneath a beech sat musing | |
| On changes time had wrought: | |
| He told to every echo | 5 |
| The story of his care, | |
| And made the rocks acquainted | |
| With love and its despair. | |
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| “O light of heart!” he murmured, | |
| “O fickle and unkind! | 10 |
| Is this the cold return | |
| My tenderness should find? | |
| Is this a fit reward | |
| For tenderness like mine?— | |
| Since thou hast sought a sphere | 15 |
| Where rank and riches shine, | |
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| “Thou canst not cast a thought | |
| Upon my lowly cot; | |
| And all our former vows | |
| Are in thy pride forgot. | 20 |
| For thee to enter in, | |
| My roof is far too low, | |
| Thy very flocks disdain | |
| With mine to wander now. | |
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| “Alas! I have no wealth, | 25 |
| No birth, no noble name, | |
| A simple shepherd youth | |
| Without a hope or claim; | |
| But none of all the train | |
| That now thy favors share | 30 |
| Can bear as I have borne, | |
| Or with my love compare. | |
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| “I ’d rather keep my habits, | |
| Though humble and untaught, | |
| Than learn the ways of courts, | 35 |
| With dangerous falsehood fraught; | |
| I ’d rather wear my bonnet, | |
| Though rustic, wild, and worn, | |
| Than flaunt in stately plumes | |
| Of courtiers highly born. | 40 |
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| “The riches of the world | |
| Bring only care and pain, | |
| And nobles great and grand | |
| With many a rich domain, | |
| Can scarcely half the pleasures, | 45 |
| With all their art, secure, | |
| That wait upon the shepherd | |
| Who lives content and poor. | |
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| “Adieu, thou savage heart! | |
| Thou fair one without love; | 50 |
| I break the chain that bound us, | |
| And thou art free to rove. | |
| But know, when in thy vanity | |
| Thou wanderest alone, | |
| No heart like mine will ever | 55 |
| Adore as I have done.” | |
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