ENONE.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Tolstoy, Leo, graf and Maude, Aylmer
Enone, in loving thy beauty, I thought,
Where the soul and the body to union are brought,
That mounting by steadying my heart and my mind,
In that which can’t perish, myself I should find.
For it ne’er was created, is not ugly and fair;
Is not coldness in one part, while on fire it is there.
Yes, I flattered myself that a harmony fine
I’d succeed to compose of the worst and the best,
Like the bard who adores Polyhymnia divine,
And mingling sounds different from the nerves of his lyre,
From the grave and the smart draws melodies higher.
But, alas! my courage, so faint and nigh spent,
The dart that has struck me proves without fail
Not to be from that bow which is easily bent
By the Venus that’s born alone of the male.
No, ’twas that other Venus that caused me to smart,
Born of frail mother with cowardly heart.
And yet that naughty lad, that little hunter bold,
Who laughs and shakes his flowery torch just for a day,
Who never rests but upon tender flowers and gay,
On sweetest skin who dries the tears his eyes that fill,
Yet oh, Enone mine, a God’s that Cupid still.
Let it pass; for the birds of the Spring are away,
And dying I see the sun’s lingering ray.
Enone, my sorrow, oh, harmonious face,
Humility grand, words of virtue and grace,
I looked yestere’en in the pond frozen fast,
Strewn with leaves at the end of the garden’s fair space,
And I read in my face that those days are now past.