bear with thee
All of the gladness thou once gavest me.
'Tis half my heart I lack through this thy taking
And what is left is good for naught but aching.
Stonecutters, set me up a carven stone
And let this sad inscription run thereon:
Ursula Kochanowski lieth here,
Her father's sorrow and her father's dear;
For heedless Death hath acted here crisscross:
She should have mourned my death, not I her loss.

LAMENT XIV

Where are those gates through which so long ago
Orpheus descended to the realms below
To seek his lost one? Little daughter, I
Would find that path and pass that ford whereby
The grim-faced boatman ferries pallid shades
And drives them forth to joyless cypress glades.
But do thou not desert me, lovely lute!
Be thou the furtherance of my mournful suit
Before dread Pluto, till he shall give ear
To our complaints and render up my dear.
To his dim dwelling all men must repair,
And so must she, her father's joy and heir;
But let him grant the fruit now scarce in flower
To fill and ripen till the harvest hour!
Yet if that god doth bear a heart within
So hard that one in grief can nothing win,
What can I but renounce this upper air
And lose my soul, but also lose my care.

LAMENT XV

Golden-locked Erato, and thou, sweet lute,
The comfort of the sad and destitute,
Calm thou my sorrow, lest I too become
A marble pillar shedding through the dumb
But living stone my almost bloody tears,
A monument of grief for coming years.
For when we think of mankind's evil chance
Does not our private grief gain temperance?
Unhappy mother (if 'tis evil hap
We blame when caught in our own folly's trap)
Where are thy sons and daughters, seven each,
The joyful cause of thy too boastful speech?
I see their fourteen stones, and thou, alas,
Who from thy misery wouldst gladly pass
To death, dost kiss the tombs, O wretched one,
Where lies thy fruit so cruelly undone.
Thus blossoms fall where some keen sickle passes
And so, when rain doth level them, green grasses.
What hope canst thou yet harbor in thee? Why
Dost thou not drive thy sorrow hence and die?
And thy swift arrows, Phoebus, what do they?
And thine unerring bow, Diana? Slay
Her, ye avenging gods, if not in rage,
Then out of pity for her desolate age.
A punishment for pride before unknown
Hath fallen: Niobe is turned to stone,
And borne in whirlwind arms o'er seas and lands,
On Sipylus in deathless marble stands.
Yet from her living wounds a crystal fountain
Of tears flows through the rock and down the mountain,
Whence beast and bird may drink; but she, in chains,
Fixed in the path of all the winds remains.
This tomb holds naught, this woman hath no tomb:
To be both grave and body is her doom.

LAMENT XVI

Misfortune hath constrainèd me
To leave the lute and poetry,
Nor can I from their easing borrow
Sleep for my sorrow.

Do I see true, or hath a dream
Flown forth from ivory gates to gleam
In phantom gold, before forsaking
Its poor cheat, waking?

Oh, mad, mistaken humankind,
'Tis easy triumph for the mind
While yet no ill adventure strikes us
And naught mislikes us.

In plenty we praise poverty,
'Mid pleasures we hold grief to be
(And even death, ere it shall stifle
Our breath) a