| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | The Secret (II.) | | By Felix Arvers (1806–1850) |
| | Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Another rendering of the same Sonnet
MY soul its secret hath, my life too hath its mystery, | |
| A love eternal in a moment’s space conceived; | |
| Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history, | |
| And she who was the cause nor knew it nor believed. | |
| Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived, | 5 |
| For ever at her side and yet for ever lonely, | |
| I shall unto the end have made life’s journey, only | |
| Daring to ask for nought, and having nought received. | |
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| For her, though God hath made her gentle and endearing, | |
| She will go on her way distraught and without hearing | 10 |
| These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend, | |
| Piously faithful still unto her austere duty, | |
| Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty, | |
| “Who can this woman be?” and will not comprehend. | | | | |
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