Childhood Friends
And goes with his smell to the emperor's sheets.
Don't try her with thoughts, for she'll puff them away;
Take your gloves off and smack her buttocks in play,
Then wink and step on her toes a bit,
That's the wooing that suits Lady Venus's wit.
But if evil thoughts in her mind shall flow,
She'll poison the dart on Cupid's bow.
It is only to children, who sportively bear
Her apples and doves while they dream of her blisses,
That the smirking deceiver appears as fair
With thirst-cooling clusters of baneful kisses.
Yet there's no stout oak of kingliest frame
But the whistling hail will shatter its crest;
The hurt man will dig his nails in his breast,
And curse, as I do, her might and her name.
He alone on earth wins a great career
Who, lost in thought, has passed by the dame.
How pallid her failing lamp will appear,
When the love your own effort has brought to birth
Flings arms of flame around heaven and earth!"
Don't try her with thoughts, for she'll puff them away;
Take your gloves off and smack her buttocks in play,
Then wink and step on her toes a bit,
That's the wooing that suits Lady Venus's wit.
But if evil thoughts in her mind shall flow,
She'll poison the dart on Cupid's bow.
It is only to children, who sportively bear
Her apples and doves while they dream of her blisses,
That the smirking deceiver appears as fair
With thirst-cooling clusters of baneful kisses.
Yet there's no stout oak of kingliest frame
But the whistling hail will shatter its crest;
The hurt man will dig his nails in his breast,
And curse, as I do, her might and her name.
He alone on earth wins a great career
Who, lost in thought, has passed by the dame.
How pallid her failing lamp will appear,
When the love your own effort has brought to birth
Flings arms of flame around heaven and earth!"
So he spoke, while with dripping hat
Over swimming highway and field he strode.
At length on the grass in his tent he sat.
Determined to fly by whatever road
His horse should choose, on that very night.
But the deepest wood and the swiftest river
Afford not oblivion's refuge ever
For the self-doomed man who has taken to flight.
Over swimming highway and field he strode.
At length on the grass in his tent he sat.
Determined to fly by whatever road
His horse should choose, on that very night.
But the deepest wood and the swiftest river
Afford not oblivion's refuge ever
For the self-doomed man who has taken to flight.
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