ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO

by: Juan Boscán Almogaver (1493-1540)

      ELL me, dear Garcilasso,--thou
      Who ever aimedst at good,
      And in the spirit of thy vow
      So swift her course pursued
      That thy few steps sufficed to place
      The angel in thy loved embrace,
      Won instant soon as wooed,--
      Why took'st thou not, when winged to flee
      From this dark world, Boscán, with thee?
       
      Why, when ascending to the star
      Where now thou sit'st enshrined,
      Left'st thou thy weeping friend afar,
      Alas! so far behind?
      Oh, I do think, had it remained
      With thee to alter aught ordained
      By the Eternal Mind,
      Thou wouldst not on this desert spot
      Have left thy other self forgot!
       
      For if through life thy love was such
      As still to take a pride
      In having me so oft and much
      Close to thy envied side,--
      I cannot doubt, I must believe,
      Thou wouldst at least have taken leave
      Of me; or, if denied,
      Have come back afterwards, unblest
      Till I too shared thy heavenly rest.

--Translated by J.H. Wiffen

"On the Death of Garcilasso" is reprinted from Hispanic Anthology: Poems Translated from the Spanish by English and North American Poets. Ed. Thomas Walsh. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1920.

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