Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.
Above, upon the Mountains
By Cyprien Despourrins (1698–1759)A
A shepherd, full of thought,
Beneath a beech sat musing
On changes time had wrought:
He told to every echo
The story of his care,
And made the rocks acquainted
With love and its despair.
“O fickle and unkind!
Is this the cold return
My tenderness should find?
Is this a fit reward
For tenderness like mine?—
Since thou hast sought a sphere
Where rank and riches shine,
Upon my lowly cot;
And all our former vows
Are in thy pride forgot.
For thee to enter in,
My roof is far too low,
Thy very flocks disdain
With mine to wander now.
No birth, no noble name,
A simple shepherd youth
Without a hope or claim;
But none of all the train
That now thy favors share
Can bear as I have borne,
Or with my love compare.
Though humble and untaught,
Than learn the ways of courts,
With dangerous falsehood fraught;
I ’d rather wear my bonnet,
Though rustic, wild, and worn,
Than flaunt in stately plumes
Of courtiers highly born.
Bring only care and pain,
And nobles great and grand
With many a rich domain,
Can scarcely half the pleasures,
With all their art, secure,
That wait upon the shepherd
Who lives content and poor.
Thou fair one without love;
I break the chain that bound us,
And thou art free to rove.
But know, when in thy vanity
Thou wanderest alone,
No heart like mine will ever
Adore as I have done.”