Long years and many had pass’d o’er my head,
    Since, in Love’s first assault, was dealt my wound,
    And from my brow its youthful air had fled,
    While cold and cautious thoughts my heart around
    Had made it almost adamantine ground,
    To loosen which hard passion gave no rest: 
    No sorrow yet with tears had bathed my breast,
    Nor broke my sleep:  and what was not in mine
    A miracle to me in others seem’d. 
    Life’s sure test death is deem’d,
    As cloudless eve best proves the past day fine;
    Ah me! the tyrant whom I sing, descried
    Ere long his error, that, till then, his dart
    Not yet beneath the gown had pierced my heart,
    And brought a puissant lady as his guide,
    ’Gainst whom of small or no avail has been
    Genius, or force, to strive or supplicate. 
    These two transform’d me to my present state,
    Making of breathing man a laurel green,
    Which loses not its leaves though wintry blasts be keen.

    What my amaze, when first I fully learn’d
    The wondrous change upon my person done,
    And saw my thin hairs to those green leaves turn’d
    (Whence yet for them a crown I might have won);
    My feet wherewith I stood, and moved, and run—­
    Thus to the soul the subject members bow—­
    Become two roots upon the shore, not now
    Of fabled Peneus, but a stream as proud,
    And stiffen’d to a branch my either arm! 
    Nor less was my alarm,
    When next my frame white down was seen to shroud,
    While, ’neath the deadly leven, shatter’d lay
    My first green hope that soar’d, too proud, in air,
    Because, in sooth, I knew not when nor where
    I left my latter state; but, night and day,
    Where it was struck, alone, in tears, I went,
    Still seeking it alwhere, and in the wave;
    And, for its fatal fall, while able, gave
    My tongue no respite from its one lament,
    For the sad snowy swan both form and language lent.

    Thus that loved wave—­my mortal speech put by
    For birdlike song—­I track’d with constant feet,
    Still asking mercy with a stranger cry;
    But ne’er in tones so tender, nor so sweet,
    Knew I my amorous sorrow to repeat,
    As might her hard and cruel bosom melt: 
    Judge, still if memory sting, what then I felt! 
    But ah! not now the past, it rather needs
    Of her my lovely and inveterate foe
    The present power to show,
    Though such she be all language as exceeds. 
    She with a glance who rules us as her own,
    Opening my breast my heart in hand to take,
    Thus said to me:  “Of this no mention make.” 
    I saw her then, in alter’d air, alone,
    So that I recognised her not—­O shame
    Be on my truant mind and faithless sight! 
    And when the truth I told her in sore fright,
    She soon resumed her old accustom’d frame,
    While, desperate and half dead, a hard rock mine became.