Sweet Love, I repent me now
Of my past presumptuous guilt,
I feel henceforth and avow
That on scoffing it was built,
Reared aloft on mocking show;
Now my proud self I abase
And my rebel neck I place
'Neath thy yoke of slavery,
Now I know the potency
Of thy great far-spreading grace.
What thou willest, thou canst do,
And what none can do, thou willest,
Who thou art, well dost thou show
In thy mood whereby thou killest,
In thy pleasure and thy woe;
I am he—the truth is plain—
Who did count thy bliss as pain,
Thy deceiving undeceiving,
And thy verities as deceiving,
As caresses thy disdain.
These have now made manifest—
Though the truth I knew before—
To my poor submissive breast
That thou only art the shore
Where our wearied lives find rest;
For the tempest pitiless
Which doth most the soul distress,
Thou dost change to peaceful calm,
Thou'rt the soul's delight and balm.
And the food that doth it bless.
Since I this confession make—
Late though my confession be—
Love, seek not my strength to break,
Temper thy severity,
From my neck the burden take;
When the foe hath made submission,
None need punish his contrition,
He doth not himself defend.
Now I fain would be thy friend,
Yet from thee comes my perdition.
From the stubbornness I turn
Where my malice did me place
And the presence of thy scorn,
From thy justice to thy grace
I appeal with heart forlorn;
If the poor worth of my mind
With thy grace no favour find,—
With thy well-known grace divine—
Soon shall I my life resign
To the hands of grief unkind.
By Gelasia's hands am I
Plunged into so strange a plight,
That if my grief stubbornly
With her stubbornness shall fight,
Soon methinks they both will die;
Tell me, maiden pitiless,
Filled with pride and scornfulness,
Why thou wishest, I implore thee,
That the heart which doth adore thee,
Should thus suffer, shepherdess.
Little it was that Lenio sang, but his flood of tears was so copious that he would there have been consumed in them, had not the shepherds come up to console him. But when he saw them coming and recognised Thyrsis among them, he arose without further delay and went to fling himself at his feet, closely embracing his knees, and said to him without ceasing his tears:
'Now you can, famous shepherd, take just vengeance for the boldness I had to compete with you, defending the unjust cause my ignorance set before me; now, I say, you can raise your arm and with a sharp knife pierce this heart where was contained foolishness so notorious as it was not to count Love the universal lord of the world. But one thing I would have you know, that if you wish to take vengeance duly on my error, you should leave me with the life I sustain, which is such that there is no death to compare to it.'
Thyrsis had already raised the hapless Lenio from the ground, and having embraced him, sought to console him with discreet and loving words, saying to him: