Galatea: A Pastoral Romance

What time unto my sad and mournful cry, Unto the ill-tuned music of my lyre, The hill and mead, the plain and stream reply In bitter echo of my vain desire, Then take thou, wind, that heedless hastenest by, The plaints which from my breast, chilled with love’s fire, Issue in my despite, asking in vain Succour from stream and hill, from mead and plain.

The stream is swollen by the tears which flow Forth from my wearied eyes: the flowery mead Blooms with the brambles and the thorns that grow Into my soul: the lofty hill doth heed Nowise my sorrows; and the plain below Of hearing is awearied: in my need No solace, e’er so small, to assuage my ill I find in stream or plain, in mead or hill.

I thought the fire that sets the heart aflame, Lit by the wingèd boy, the cunning net, Within whose mesh he doth the gods entame, The strangling noose, the arrow he doth whet In frenzied wrath, would wound the peerless dame As me they wound, who am her slave; and yet No noose nor fire hath power against a heart That is of marble made, nor net nor dart.