Because the sun renews
the injured heavens, and Zephyrus revives
the dull air, and the dark shadows of clouds
are driven off, scattered down the valleys;
birds trust their fragile forms
to the wind, and the light of day
brings new desire for love, fresh hope,
penetrating the woods and through
the melting frost, to waking creatures:
perhaps human spirits, drowned in grief
and weariness might remake
the age of beauty, which tragedy, and the black
torch of truth, consumed
before its time? Are Phoebus’s rays
truly quenched in darkness
forever? Fragrant Spring
can you rouse and inspire
this frozen heart that knows
old age’s bitterness in the flower of youth?

      Are you alive, O sacred Nature,
are you alive? Alive, and your maternal voice
gathered to an unaccustomed hearing?
Your rivers were once home to the bright nymphs,
the liquid founts were placid haunts and mirrors.
And the rugged mountain ridges, the tangled
woods (today the remote haunt of the winds)
trembled to the arcane dance
of immortal footsteps: and the shepherd
leading his thirsty flock through the flickering
mid-day shadows of the flowering
river-banks, heard the shrill piping
of woodland Pan echoing
along the stream: saw the waves
tremble, amazed, and, saw, vaguely,
the quiver-bearing goddess
descending into the warm flood,
washing the grime and dust of the bloody chase
from her white flanks and virgin arms.

      Once, the grass and flowers breathed,
and the woods. The gentle airs,
the clouds, and the lamp of the sun,
were aware of humanity, then, when
the traveller followed you with intent eyes,
Cyprian Planet, in the empty night,
you, naked above the hills and shores,
his companion on the road, the image
of mortal thought. When, fleeing
the impure towns
and deadly anger and shame,
men clasped the rugged tree-trunks,
deep in dense woods,
and thought that living flame surged
through the dry veins, leaves breathed:
that they clasped in their arms the hidden heartbeat
of sorrowful Daphne, or sad Phyllis, or heard
Clymene’s disconsolate daughters weeping
for Phaethon, drowned by the Sun in the Italian River.

      Nor, harsh cliffs, were the mournful sounds
of human misery lost
as they struck you,
while timorous Echo haunted your spaces,
not the wind’s vain wandering,
but a nymph’s unhappy spirit, she,
whom the weight of love and harsh fate
robbed of her limbs. From caves,
and naked cliffs, and desolate haunts,
she taught a message, her understanding
of our high and broken lament,
to the arching sky. You too, nightingale,
the tale declares, were expert
in human fate, you who sing now
the coming of the re-born year,
and in the deep
quiet of the countryside, through the dark silent air,
mourn your ancient wrong, an ill vengeance,
anger and pity to make the sun grow pale.

      But your race is unknown to us:
grief does not form those varying
notes of yours, and free of guilt,
and so less dear to us, they climb the dark valley.
Ah, since the halls of Olympus
are empty, and thunder strays blindly
among dark clouds and mountains,
filling guilty or innocent hearts
with the same cold terror: and their native land
is alien to her children, the sad spirits
she produces: lovely Nature
listen to the unhappy cares,
and unjust fate of mortals,
and rekindle the ancient flame
in me: if you still live,
if there’s truly one thing
at least in heaven, or on
the naked earth, or in the deep sea,
that may not pity but observes our pain.