'You speak truth,' replied Elicio: 'but with Silveria the love she knew Mireno had for her should have had more power than any treasure; the more so that Mireno is not so poor that his poverty would be remarked, though Silveria were to wed him.'
Through these remarks which Elicio and Erastro uttered, the desire to learn what Mireno was singing increased in the shepherds; and so Silerio begged that no more might be said, and all with attentive ears stopped to listen to him. He, distressed by Silveria's ingratitude, seeing that next day she was wedding Daranio, with the rage and grief this deed caused him, had gone forth from his house accompanied only by his rebeck: and invited by the solitude and silence of a tiny little meadow which was hard by the walls of the village, and trusting that on a night so peaceful no one would listen to him, he sat down at the foot of a tree, and tuning his rebeck was singing in this wise:
MIRENO.
Oh cloudless sky, that with so many eyes
O'er all the world the thefts of Love beholdest,
And in thy course dost fill with joy or grief
Him who to their sweet cause his agonies
Tells 'midst thy stillness, or whom thou withholdest
From such delight, nor offerest him relief,
If yet with thee be chief
Kindness for me perchance, since now indeed
In speech alone contentment must I find,
Thou, knowing all my mind,
My words—it is not much I ask—may'st heed;
For, see, my voice of woe
Shall with my sorrowing soul die 'neath the blow.
Ah now my wearied voice, my woeful cry,
Scarce, scarce, will now offend the empty air;
For I at last unto this pass am brought,
That to the winds that angry hasten by,
Love casts my hopes, and in another's care
Hath placed the bliss that I deserving sought,
The fruit my loving thought
Did sow, the fruit watered by wearied tears
By his triumphant hands will gathered be,
And his the victory,
Who was in fortune rich beyond his peers,
But in deserving poor—
'Tis fortune smooths the rough and makes it sure.
Then he who sees his happiness depart
By any way, who doth his glory see
Transformed into such bitter grievous pain—
Why ends he not his life with all its smart?
Against the countless powers of destiny
Why strives he not to break the vital chain?
Slowly I pass amain
Unto the peril sweet of bitter death.
Wherefore, mine arm, bold 'midst thy weariness,
Endure thou the distress
Of living, since our lot it brighteneth
To know that 'tis Love's will
That grief should do the deed, as steel doth kill.
My death is certain, for it cannot be
That he should live whose very hope is dead,
And who from glory doth so far remain.
Yet this I fear, that death, by Love's decree,
May be impossible, that memory fed
By a false confidence may live again
In my despite. What then?
For if the tale of my past happiness
I call to mind, and see that all is gone,
That I am now undone
By the sad cares I in its stead possess,
'Twill serve the more to show
That I from memory and from life should go.
Ah! chief and only good my soul hath known!
Sun that didst calm the storm within my breast!
Goal of the worth that is desired by me!
Can it be that the day should ever dawn
When I must know that thou rememberest
No more, and Love that day doth let me see?
Rather, ere this should be,
Ere thy fair neck be by another's arms
In all its loveliness encircled, ere
Thy golden—nay thy hair
Is gold, and ere its gold in all its charms
Should make Daranio rich,
Its end may the evil with my life's end reach.
None hath by faith better deserved than I
To win thee; but I see that faith is dead,
Unless it be by deeds made manifest.
To certain grief and to uncertain joy
I yield my life; and if I merited
Thereby, I might hope for a gladsome feast.
But in this cruellest
Law used by Love, hath good desire no place,
This proverb lovers did of old discover:
The deed declares the lover,
And as for me, who to my hurt possess
Naught but the will to do,
Wherein must I not fail, whose deeds are few?
I thought the law would clearly broken be
In thee, that avaricious Love doth use;
I thought that thou thine eyes on high wouldst raise
Unto a captive soul that serves but thee,
So ready to perform what thou dost choose,
That, if thou didst but know, 'twould earn thy praise.
For a faith that assays
By the vain pomps of wealth so full of care
All its desires, thou wouldst not change, I thought,
A faith that was so fraught
With tokens of good faith, Silveria fair.
Thyself thou didst to gold
Yield that thou mightst yield me to grief untold.