Jan Kochanowski

My good and noble health,
Thou matter'st more then wealth.
None know'th thy worth until
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Come, Heraclitus and Simonides,
Come with your weeping and sad elegies:
Ye griefs and sorrows, come from all the lands
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If I had ever thought to write in praise
Of little children and their simple ways,
Far rather had I fashioned cradle verse
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So, thou hast scorned me, my delight and heir;
Thy father's halls, then, were not broad and fair
Enough for thee to dwell here longer, sweet.
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Thou hast constrained mine eyes, unholy Death,
To watch my dear child breathe her dying breath:
To watch thee shake the fruit unripe and clinging
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Thou shouldst be purchased, Wisdom, for much gold
If all they say of thee is truly told:
That thou canst root out from the mind the host
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Just as a little olive offshoot grows
Beneath its orchard elders' shady rows,
No budding leaf as yet, no branching limb,
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Dear little Slavic Sappho, we had thought,
Hearing thy songs so sweetly, deftly wrought,
That thou shouldst have an heritage one day
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Sad trinkets of my little daughter, dresses
That touched her like caresses,
Why do you draw my mournful eyes? To borrow
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Thou hast made all the house an empty thing,
Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing.
Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place,
One little soul had filled so great a space.
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My dear delight, my Ursula, and where
Art thou departed, to what land, what sphere?
High o'er the heavens wert thou borne, to stand
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'Virtue is but a trifle!' Brutus said
In his defeat; nor was he cozened.
What man did his own goodness e'er advance
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I think no father under any sky
More fondly loved a daughter than did I,
And scarcely ever has a child been born
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Ursula, winsome child, I would that I
Had never had thee if thou wert to die
So early. For with lasting grief I pay,
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Where are those gates through which so long ago
Orpheus descended to the realms below
To seek his lost one? Little daughter, I
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Long through the night hours sorrow was my guest
And would not let my fainting body rest,
Till just ere dawn from out its slow dominions
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Golden-locked Erato, and thou, sweet lute,
The comfort of the sad and destitute,
Calm thou my sorrow, lest I too become
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Misfortune hath constrained me
To leave the lute and poetry,
Nor can I from their easing borrow
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God hath laid his hand on me:
He hath taken all my glee,
And my spirit's emptied cup
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We are thy thankless children, gracious Lord.
The good thou dost afford
Lightly do we employ,
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