Translated by A. Z. Foreman - When I Behold the Skylark lyrics

When I behold the skylark lift His wings adance against the dawn, And fall forgetfully adrift For all the joy his heart has won, Oh envy eats at me to see Him joyful in the light of day. I marvel that the heart in me Does anything but melt away. What is this thing I thought I knew? This love that I know nothing of: The foolishness of being true To one who will not hear of love, Who took my heart away and me, And took herself and took the rest, And left me full of memory, And left a mania in my breast. My mind beyond all mastery, I wasn't mine a single night Since in her eyes she let me see A mirror spellbinding my sight. O mirror I saw me in you, And read what only grief can tell, Perdition in a single view, Narcissus ruined at the well. I have no faith, from this day hence, In women as I did before. Though I once stood in their defense, I cannot stand them anymore. For none can lift me from my fall When she has cast me out to shame. Now I distrust them one and all, And know too well they're all the same. And so milady's proven true To womanhood, and is to blame, Despising what she ought to do And taking pride in every shame. I've fallen out of favor now, “Fool on a bridge” the people sigh. I know not why. I know not how. Perhaps I tried to climb too high. Mercy and favor are long done, And kindness I have yet to see. If she who should possesses none Herself, then where can mercy be? So sweet a woman, who'd have guessed She'd let this dismal lover lie Bereft of everything that's best And leave him helpless here to die? Her scorn is heaped upon on my worth And my appeals to sympathy, She treats my love with vacant mirth And so she'll have no more from me. I'll pack my love away and go; Now dead, with d**h I answer her. I'm going, since she wills it so, In exile- nobody knows where. Lady, you'll have no more from me. I'm going nobody knows where. I'm taking leave of poetry To quest for loveless, joyless air.