Let Us Live and Love (5)

Gaius Valerius Catullus

My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love;
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive;
But, soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.

If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armor should not be;
No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm came from camp of love.
But fools do live and waster their little light,
And seek with pain their ever-during night.

When timely death my life and fortune ends,
Let not my hearse be vexed with mourning friends;
But let all lovers rich in triumph come,
And with sweet pastime grace my happy tomb.
And, Lesbia, close up thou my little light,
And crown with love by ever-during night.

Translated by Thomas Campion in 1601. This poem is in the public domain.

To me that man seems like a god in heaven, seems—may I say it?—greater than all gods are, who sits by you & without interruption watches you, listens to your light laughter, which casts such confusion onto my senses, Lesbia, that when I gaze at you merely, all of my well-chosen words are forgotten as my tongue thickens & a subtle fire runs through my body while my ears deafened by their own ringing & at once my eyes are covered in darkness! Leisure, Catullus. More than just a nuisance, leisure: you riot, overmuch enthusing. Fabulous cities & their sometime kings have died of such leisure.

Him rival to the gods I place, Him loftier yet, if loftier be, Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face, Who listens and who looks on thee; Thee smiling soft. Yet this delight Doth all my sense consign to death; For when thou dawnest on my sight, Ah, wretched! flits my labouring breath. My tongue is palsied. Subtly hid Fire creeps me through from limb to limb: My loud ears tingle all unbid: Twin clouds of night mine eyes bedim. Ease is my plague: ease makes thee void, Catullus, with these vacant hours, And wanton: ease that hath destroyed Great kings, and states with all their powers.

By ways remote and distant waters sped, Brother, to thy sad grave-side am I come, That I may give the last gifts to the dead, And vainly parley with thine ashes dumb: Since she who now bestows and now denies Hath ta'en thee, hapless brother, from mine eyes. But lo! these gifts, the heirlooms of past years, Are made sad things to grace thy coffin shell; Take them, all drenched with a brother's tears, And, brother, for all time, hail and farewell!

Poems

Let Us Live and Love (5)

More by Gaius Valerius Catullus

To me that man seems like a god in heaven (51)

Him rival to the gods I place (51)

By ways remote and distant waters sped (101)

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Poems

Let Us Live and Love (5)

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