Note 154 — CABINET OF BIOGRAPHY. (continued 7)
Reading edition
One of the most perfect and beautiful of Camoens' poems, is a sonnet which many have preferred to the one of Petrarch on the same subject, or even to his Trionfa, which also narrates the visionary visit of his lost love. The following is Mr. Hayley's translation:—
"While prest with woes from which it cannot flee, My fancy sinks, and slumber seals my eyes, Her spirit hastens in my dreams to rise, Who was in life but as a dream to me. O'er the drear waste, so wide no eye can see How far its sense-evading limit lies, I follow her quick step; but ah, she flies! Our distance wid'ning by fate's stern decree. 'Fly not from me, kind shadow,' I exclaim; She with fixed eyes, that her soft thoughts reveal, And seemed to say, 'Forbear thy fond design,'— Still flies.—I call her, but her half-formed name Dies on my falt'ring tongue.—I wake and feel Not e'en one short delusion can be mine."