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Translated by Richard Henry Wilde
FAIR daughters of Rénée! my song | |
| Is not of pride and ire, | |
| Fraternal discord, hate, and wrong, | |
| Burning in life and death so strong, | |
| From rule’s accurst desire, | 5 |
| That even the flames divided long | |
| Upon their funeral pyre. | |
| But you I sing, of royal birth, | |
| Nursed on one breast like them; | |
| Two flowers, both lovely, blooming forth | 10 |
| From the same parent stem,— | |
| Cherished by heaven, beloved by earth, | |
| Of each a treasured gem! | |
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| To you I speak in whom we see | |
| With wondrous concord blend | 15 |
| Sense, worth, fame, beauty, modesty, | |
| Imploring you to lend | |
| Compassion to the misery | |
| And sufferings of your friend. | |
| The memory of years gone by, | 20 |
| O, let me in your hearts renew,— | |
| The scenes, the thoughts, o’er which I sigh, | |
| The happy days I spent with you,— | |
| And what, I ask, and where am I, | |
| And what I was, and why secluded; | 25 |
| Whom did I trust, and who deluded? | |
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| Daughters of heroes and of kings, | |
| Allow me to recall | |
| These and a thousand other things,— | |
| Sad, sweet, and mournful all! | 30 |
| From me few words, more tears, grief wrings,— | |
| Tears burning as they fall. | |
| For royal halls and festive bowers | |
| Where, nobly serving, I | |
| Shared and beguiled your private hours, | 35 |
| Studies, and sports I sigh; | |
| And lyre, and trump, and wreathed flowers; | |
| Nay more, for freedom, health, applause, | |
| And even humanity’s lost laws! | |
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| Why am I chased from human kind? | 40 |
| What Circe in the lair | |
| Of brutes, thus keeps me spell-confined? | |
| Nests have the birds of air, | |
| The very beasts in caverns find | |
| Shelter and rest, and share | 45 |
| At least kind nature’s gifts and laws, | |
| For each his food and water draws | |
| From wood and fountain, where, | |
| Wholesome and pure and safe, it was | |
| Furnished by heaven’s own care; | 50 |
| And all is bright and blest, because | |
| Freedom and health are there! | |
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| I merit punishment, I own; | |
| I erred, I must confess it; yet | |
| The fault was in the tongue alone, | 55 |
| The heart is true. Forgive! forget! | |
| I beg for mercy, and my woes | |
| May claim with pity to be heard; | |
| If to my prayers your ears you close, | |
| Where can I hope for one kind word | 60 |
| In my extremity of ill? | |
| And if the pang of hope deferred | |
| Arise from discord in your will, | |
| For me must be revived again | |
| The fate of Metius and the pain. | 65 |
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| I pray you, then, renew for me | |
| The charm that made you doubly fair, | |
| In sweet and virtuous harmony | |
| Urging, resistlessly, my prayer; | |
| With him for whose loved sake, I swear | 70 |
| I more lament my fault than pains, | |
| Strange and unheard of as they are. | |
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