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

The Maiden’s Lament

Translation of Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton

THE WIND rocks the forest,

The clouds gather o’er;

The maiden sits lonely

Beside the green shore;

The breakers are dashing with might, with might:

And she mingles her sighs with the gloomy night,

And her eyes are dim with tears.

“The earth is a desert,

And broken my heart,

Nor aught to my wishes

The world can impart.

Thou Holy One, call now thy child from below;

I have known all the joys that the world can bestow—

I have lived and have loved.”—

“In vain, oh how vainly,

Flows tear upon tear!

Human woe never waketh

Dull Death’s heavy ear!

Yet say what can soothe for the sweet vanished love,

And I, the Celestial, will shed from above

The balm for thy breast.”

Let ever, though vainly,

Flow tear upon tear;

Human woe never waketh

Dull Death’s heavy ear:

Yet still when the heart mourns the sweet vanished love,

No balm for its wound can descend from above

Like Love’s sorrows and tears.