C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

He Seeks Solitude, but Love Follows him Everywhere

“Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi”

Anonymous Translation: Oxford, 1795

ALONE, and lost in thought, the desert glade

Measuring, I roam with ling’ring steps and slow;

And still a watchful glance around me throw,

Anxious to shun the print of human tread:

No other means I find, no surer aid

From the world’s prying eye to hide my woe:

So well my wild disordered gestures show,

And love-lorn looks, the fire within me bred,

That well I deem each mountain, wood, and plain,

And river knows what I from man conceal,—

What dreary hues my life’s fond prospects dim.

Yet whate’er wild or savage paths I’ve ta’en,

Where’er I wander, Love attends me still,

Soft whisp’ring to my soul, and I to him.