GOLDFINCHES 223 



probably Spanish, who has treated the same subject. 

 At all events, the incident related is the same, except 

 that a little girl has been substituted for the girl wife 

 of the original. Here is the first stanza: 



Wherefore pinest thou, my bird ? 



Thy sweet song is never heard. 



All the bird's best joys surround thee, 



Ever since the day I found thee. 



Once thy voice was free and glad, 



Tell me why thou art so sad ? 



If this coarse thread cause thee pain, 



Thou shalt have a silken chain. 



What poor, artificial stuff it is! How it bumps you, 

 each line ending with the dull, hard, wooden thud of 

 the rhyme! Doubtless if a better poet had written 

 it the result would not have been so bad; my sole 

 reason for quoting it is that I can find no other transla- 

 tion or version in our literature. We abound in bird 

 poems, some of them among the most beautiful lyrics 

 in the language; but I confess that, for the reasons 

 already given, even the best, such as those of Words- 

 worth, Hogg, Shelley, Meredith, and Swinburne 

 himself, particularly in his splendid ode to the 

 seamew, fail to give me entire satisfaction. 



I am bad at translating, or paraphrasing, anything, 

 and the subject of the Spanish poem is one peculiarly 

 suited to verse; if taken out of that sublimated 

 emotional language, I fear it must seem flat, if not 

 ridiculous. Nevertheless, I will venture to give here 

 a simple prose translation of the anecdote, and will 

 ask the reader to retranslate it in imagination into 

 swift-flowing verse, in a language perhaps unknown 



