Sonnet VIII

translated by Viscount Strangford

Mondego! thou, whose waters cold and clear 
Gird those green banks, where fancy fain would stay, 
Fondly to muse on that departed day 
When Hope was kind and Friendship seem’d sincere; 
—Ere I had purchas’d knowledge with a tear.
—Mondego! though I bend my pilgrim way 
To other shores, where other fountains stray,
And other rivers roll their proud career, 
Still—nor shall time, nor grief, nor stars severe, 
Nor widening distance e’er prevail in aught 
To make thee less to this sad bosom dear; 
And Memory oft, by old Affection taught, 
Shall lightly speed upon the plumes of thought, 
To bathe amongst thy waters cold and clear!

 

 

[Doces e claras aguas do Mondego,] 

 

Doces e claras aguas do Mondego, 
Doce repouso de minha lembrança, 
Onde a comprida e pérfida esperança 
Longo tempo apoz si me trouxe cego.
De vós me aparto, si; porém não nego, 
Que inda a longa memoria, que me alcança. 
Me não deixa de vós fazer mudança. 
Mas quanto mais me alongo, mais me achego.
Bem poderá a Fortuna este instrumento 
Da alma levar por terra nova e extranha, 
Oíferecido ao mar remoto, ao vento.
Mas a alma, que de cá vos acompanha. 
Nas azas do ligeiro pensamento 
Para vós, aguas, vôa, e em vós se banha.

Credit

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 3, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

The first known appearance of “Sonnet VIII,” in the original Portuguese, was in Rythmas de Luis de Cameos, published in 1595. It was later translated into English and published by Viscount Strangford in Poems, from the Portuguese of Luis De Cameons (James Carpenter and Son, 1803). Although Lord Byron allegedly doubted the legitimacy of Strangford’s translations, claiming that he had published them “in order to get the situation at the Brazils, and did not know a word of Portuguese when he commenced,” and, furthermore, that the Irish poet Thomas Moore was their true author, as recounted in Thomas Medwin’s Conversations of Lord Byron (Henry Colburn, 1824), the translations were well-received by the public upon their debut (even being so popular as to partially inspire the title of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese (Chapman & Hall, 1850), at Robert Browning’s suggestion). About this particular sonnet, Strangford writes, “The earliest and happiest years of [Camões’s] life were passed at Coimbra. The walls of that town were bathed by the river Mondego, to which this beautiful Sonnet is addressed.”