Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/94

TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG.

1.
Ah! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,
Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.

2.
Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows, well I knew
Alas! I find them poisoned too.

3.
Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,
Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

4.
A bird of free and careless wing
Was I, through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,
I burn, and feebly flutter there.

5.
Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.

6.
In flattering dreams I deemed thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;