II. Unacknowledged and Uncollected Translations. Let me go warm

By Luis de Góngora y Argote

The history of Mr. Longfellow’s work in translation has been given in the Introductory Note to the Translations in the present volume. As indicated there, a number of poems were contributed by Mr. Longfellow to periodicals as well as to his two collections, The Poets and Poetry of Europe and Poems of Places, which were signed by him, but for some reason were not included in any of the volumes of poetry which he put forth from time to time. Such poems have been recovered and placed in their proper groups. Besides these signed poems, however, there are a number which may be traced without question to Mr. Longfellow’s pen, and in accordance with the plan of this edition they have been reserved for the Appendix, and are here given.

This poem was published in The New England Magazine, July, 1831, and afterwards in The Poets and Poetry of Europe.

LET me go warm and merry still;

And let the world laugh, an’ it will.

Let others muse on earthly things,—

The fall of thrones, the fate of kings,

And those whose fame the world doth fill;

Whilst muffins sit enthroned in trays,

And orange-punch in winter sways

The merry sceptre of my days;—

And let the world laugh, an’ it will.

He that the royal purple wears

From golden plate a thousand cares

Doth swallow as a gilded pill:

On feasts like these I turn my back,

Whilst puddings in my roasting-jack

Beside the chimney hiss and crack;—

And let the world laugh, an’ it will.

And when the wintry tempest blows,

And January’s sleets and snows

Are spread o’er every vale and hill,

With one to tell a merry tale

O’er roasted nuts and humming ale,

I sit, and care not for the gale;—

And let the world laugh, an’ it will.

Let merchants traverse seas and lands,

For silver mines and golden sands;

Whilst I beside some shadowy rill,

Just where its bubbling fountain swells,

Do sit and gather stones and shells,

And hear the tale the blackbird tells;—

And let the world laugh, an’ it will.

For Hero’s sake the Grecian lover

The stormy Hellespont swam over:

I cross, without the fear of ill,

The wooden bridge that slow bestrides

The Madrigal’s enchanting sides,

Or barefoot wade through Yepes’ tides;—

And let the world laugh, an’ it will.

But since the Fates so cruel prove,

That Pyramus should die of love,

And love should gentle Thisbe kill;

My Thisbe be an apple-tart,

The sword I plunge into her heart

The tooth that bites the crust apart,—

And let the world laugh, an’ it will.

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