Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
104 . The Lament
O
While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines.
And wanders here to wail and weep!
With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream!
The faintly-marked, distant hill; I joyless view thy trembling horn, Reflected in the gurgling rill: My fondly-fluttering heart, be still! Thou busy pow’r, remembrance, cease! Ah! must the agonizing thrill For ever bar returning peace! My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim: No shepherd’s pipe—Arcadian strains; No fabled tortures, quaint and tame. The plighted faith, the mutual flame, The oft-attested pow’rs above, The promis’d father’s tender name; These were the pledges of my love! How have the raptur’d moments flown! How have I wish’d for fortune’s charms, For her dear sake, and her’s alone! And, must I think it! is she gone, My secret heart’s exulting boast? And does she heedless hear my groan? And is she ever, ever lost? So lost to honour, lost to truth, As from the fondest lover part, The plighted husband of her youth? Alas! life’s path may be unsmooth! Her way may lie thro’ rough distress! Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe Her sorrows share, and make them less? Enraptur’d more, the more enjoy’d, Your dear remembrance in my breast My fondly-treasur’d thoughts employ’d: That breast, how dreary now, and void, For her too scanty once of room! Ev’n ev’ry ray of hope destroy’d, And not a wish to gild the gloom! Awakes me up to toil and woe; I see the hours in long array, That I must suffer, lingering, slow: Full many a pang, and many a throe, Keen recollection’s direful train, Must wring my soul, were Phœbus, low, Shall kiss the distant western main. Sore harass’d out with care and grief, My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye, Keep watchings with the nightly thief: Or if I slumber, fancy, chief, Reigns, haggard-wild, in sore affright: Ev’n day, all-bitter, brings relief From such a horror-breathing night. Now highest reign’st, with boundless sway Oft has thy silent-marking glance Observ’d us, fondly-wand’ring, stray! The time, unheeded, sped away, While love’s luxurious pulse beat high, Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, To mark the mutual-kindling eye. Scenes, never, never to return! Scenes, if in stupor I forget, Again I feel, again I burn! From ev’ry joy and pleasure torn, Life’s weary vale I’ll wander thro’; And hopeless, comfortless, I’ll mourn A faithless woman’s broken vow!