C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Or Che L’aura Mia
By Torquato Tasso (1544–1595)
Translation of Richard Henry Wilde
T
Breathes amid fields and forests hard of heart,—
Bereft of joy I stray from crowds apart
In this dark vale, ’mid grief and ire’s foul air,
Where there is nothing left of bright or fair.
Since Love has gone a rustic to the plow,
Or feeds his flocks, or in the summer now
Handles the rake, now plies the scythe with care.
Happy the mead and valley, hill and wood,
Where man and beast, and almost tree and stone,
Seem by her look with sense and joy endued!
What is not changed on which her eyes e’er shone?
The country courteous grows, the city rude,
Even from her presence or her loss alone.