No. 7 The Lover and the Nightingale
These hours of spring are jolly;
Maidens, be gay!
Shake off dull melancholy,
Ye lads, to-day!
Oh! all abloom am I!
It is a maiden love that makes me sigh,
A new, new love it is wherewith I die!
The nightingale is singing
So sweet a lay!
Her glad voice heavenward flinging—
No check, no stay.
Flower of girls love-laden
Is my sweetheart;
Of roses red the maiden
For whom I smart.
The promise that she gives me
Makes my heart bloom;
If she denies, she drives me
Forth to the gloom.
My maid, to me relenting,
Is fain for play;
Her pure heart, unconsenting,
Saith, “Lover, stay!”
Hush, Philomel, thy singing,
This little rest!
Let the soul’s song rise ringing
Up from the breast!
In desolate Decembers
Man bides his time:
Spring stirs the slumbering embers;
Love-juices climb.
Come, mistress, come, my maiden!
Bring joy to me!
Come, come, thou beauty-laden!
I die for thee!
O all abloom am I!
It is a maiden love that makes me sigh,
A new, new love it is wherewith I die!
There is a very pretty Invitation to Youth, the refrain of which, though partly undecipherable, seems to indicate an Italian origin. I have thought it well to omit this refrain; but it might be rendered thus, maintaining the strange and probably corrupt reading of the last line:—
“List, my fair, list, bela mia,
To the thousand charms of Venus!
Da hizevaleria.”