BABYLON AND SION (GOA AND LISBON)
by: Luis Vas de Camões
(1524-1580)
- ERE, where
fecundity of Babel frames
- Stuff for all ills wherewith the world doth teem,
- Where loyal Love is slurred with disesteem,
- For Venus all controls, and all defames;
- Where vice's vaunts are counted, virtue's shames;
- Where Tyranny o'er Honor lords supreme;
- Where blind and erring sovereignty doth deem
- That God for deeds will be content with names;
-
- Here in this world where whatso is, is wrong,
- Where Birth and Worth and Wisdom begging go
- To doors of Avarice and Villainy,--
- Trammelled in the foul chaos, I prolong
- My days, because I must. Woe to me! Woe!
- Sion, had I not memory of thee!
--Translated by Richard Garnett
"Babylon and Sion" 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. |
MORE POEMS BY LUIS VAZ DE CAMÕES |
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