Lost Love

An Electronic Edition · Juana de Asbaje (also known as Juana Inés de la Cruz) (1651-1695)

Original Source: Hispanic Anthology: Poems Translated from the Spanish by English and North American Poets. Ed. Thomas Walsh. New York: G. P. Putnam's Son, 1920

Copyright 2003. This text is freely available provided the text is distributed with the header information provided.

Full Colophon Information

The Lost Love

Ah! when shall I, my glory,1.
Discern thy light in radiance shining, 
Thy presence illusory, 
To bring me sweet release from grief and pining? 
When shall I see thine eyes, enchanting rapture, 
And yield thee mine, as tender capture? 

When will thy voice awaken1.
Mine ears with thrilling accents from their sadness, 
And I, enthralled, o’ertaken3.
By the floods of its ineffable gladness, 
Be swept away in ecstasy, and after 
The marvel wanes, hasten to thee with laughter? 

When will thy light effulgent1.
Reclothe with roseate glamour all my being?  
And when shall I, indulgent, 
The anguish of my sighs exhaled and fleeing, 
No more bemoan the pangs of my past sorrow? 
When thou shalt come, and glorify the morrow! 

Come then, my soul’s dear treasure,
1.
Since fast through weariness my life is fading,
 
And absence without measure,
 
Come then, lest, heeding not my soft persuading, 
Thou wound my love; e’en yet, despite mine anger,
5.
With tears of hope I will refresh my languor!  

Trans. Peter H. Goldsmith

Full Colophon Information

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Genre: Poetry

This text was first published in Madrid in 1692

The text of the present edition was initially prepared from and proofed against Hispanic Anthology: Poems Translated from the Spanish by English and North American Poets , ed. Thomas Walsh (New York: G. P. Putnam's Son, 1920). All preliminaries and notes have been omitted except those for which the author is responsible. All editorial notes have been omitted except those that indicate significant textual variations. Line and paragraph numbers contained in the source text have been retained. In cases where the source text displays no numbers, numbers are automatically generated. In the header, personal names have been regularized according to the Library of Congress authority files as "Last Name, First Name" for the REG attribute and "First Name Last Name" for the element value. Names have not been regularized in the body of the text.