ELEGY I.
TO THE DUKE OF ALVA,
ON THE DEATH OF HIS BROTHER, DON BERNARDINO DE TOLEDO.
Although this heavy stroke has touched my soul
With such regret, that I myself require
Some friend my deep depression to console,
That my spent fancy may afresh respire;
Yet would I try, if chance the' Aonian choir
Give me the requisite assistance, just
To strike a little comfort from the lyre,
Thy frenzy to assuage, revive thy trust,
And raise once more thy head and honours from the dust.
At thy distress the pitying Muses weep;
For neither, as I hear, when suns arise,
Nor when they set, giv'st thou thy sorrows sleep,
Rather by brooding o'er them as one dies,
Creat'st another, with disordered eyes
Still weeping, that I fear to see thy mind
And spirit melt away in tears and sighs,
Like snows on hill-tops, which the rainy wind
Moaning dissolves away, and leaves no trace behind.
Or if by chance thy wearied thought finds rest
For a few moments in desired repose,
'Tis to return to grief with added zest;
In that short slumber thy poor brother shows
Pallid as when he swooned away in throes
From his sweet life, and thou, intent to lift
His dear delusive corse, dost but enclose
The vacant air; then Sleep revokes her gift,
And from thy waking eye the mimic form flies swift.
Yet cherishing the dream, with sense at strife,
Thyself no more, thou anxiously look'st round
For that beloved brother, who through life
The better portion of thy soul was found,
Which, dying, could not leave it wholly sound;
And thus, forlorn, distracted, dost thou go,
Invoking him in shrieks and groans profound,
How changed in aspect! hurrying to and fro,
As mad Lampecia erst beside the fatal Po.
With the like earnest exclamations, she
Her Phaëton bewailed; "wild waves, restore
My poor lost brother, if you would not see
Me too die, watering with my tears your shore!"
Oft, oh how oft, did she the stream implore!
How oft, revived by grief, her shrieks renew!
And oh, as oft, that active frenzy o'er,
Whispering, 'twas all she could, green earth adieu,
Pale on the poplar shore her faded foliage strew.
Yet, I confess, if any accident
In this for-ever shifting state should bend
The noble soul so loudly to lament,
It were the present, since a mournful end
Has thus deprived thee of so dear a friend,
(Not a mere brother) one who not alone
Shared thy deep counsels, taught thee to unbend,
And knew each secret that to thee was known;
But every shade of thought peculiarly thine own.