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Ite hillc, Camenae, vos quoque ite jam, sane
Dulces
Camenae, nam fatebimur verum
Dulces fuistis, et tamen meas chartas
Revisitote sed pudenter et raro.
Pale
poems, weak and few, who vainly use
Your wings towards the unattainable spheres,
Offspring
of the divine Hellenic Muse,
Poor
maimèd children born of six disastrous years!
Not as your mother’s is your wounded grace,
Since
not to me with equal love returned
The
hope which drew me to that serene face
Wherein
no unreposeful light of effort burned.
Depart and live for seasons many or few
If live you may, but stay not here to pain
My heart with hopeless passion and renew
Visions
of beauty that my lips shall ne’er attain.
For in Sicilian olive-groves no more
Or seldom must my footprints now be seen,
Nor tread Athenian lanes, nor yet explore.
Parnassus or thy voiceful shores, O Hippocrene.
Me
from her lotus heaven Saraswati
Has called to regions of eternal snow
And Ganges pacing to the southern sea,
Ganges
upon whose shores the flowers of Eden blow.
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