high-born helen, round your dwelling

these twenty years i’ve paced in vain;

haughty beauty, thy lover’s duty

hath been to glory in his pain.

high-born helen, proudly telling

stories of thy cold disdain;

i starve, i die, now you comply,

and i no longer can complain.

these twenty years i’ve lived on tears,

dwelling for ever on a frown;

on sighs i’ve fed, your scorn my bread;

i perish now you kind are grown.

can i, who loved my beloved,

but for the scorn “was in her eye,”

can i be moved for my beloved

when she “returns me sigh for sigh?”

in stately pride, by my bedside,

high-born helen’s portrait’s hung;

deaf to my praise, my mournful lays

are nightly to the portrait sung.

to that i weep, nor ever sleep,

complaining all night long to her:

helen, grown old, no longer cold,

said, “you to all men i prefer.”