O Solitude, my sweetest choice, Z. 406

O Solitude, my sweetest choice

O solitude, my sweetest choice,

Places devoted to the night,

Remote from tumult and from noise,

How ye my restless thoughts delight!

O heav’ns! what content is mine

To see those trees, which have appear’d

From the nativity of time,

And which all ages have rever’d,

To look today as fresh and green

As when their beauties first were seen.

Oh, how agreeable a sight

These hanging mountains do appear,

Which th’ unhappy would invite

To finish all their sorrows here,

When their hard fate makes them endure

Such woes as only death can cure.

Oh, how I solitude adore!

That element of noblest wit,

Where I have learnt Apollo’s lore,

Without the pains to study it.

For thy sake I in love am grown

With what thy fancy does pursue;

But when I think upon my own,

I hate it for that reason too,

Because it needs must hinder me

From seeing and from serving thee.

O solitude, oh, how I solitude adore!

Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant (1594–1661)

Translation: Katherine Philips (1631–64)

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