Can skill disentangle
the meshes of love,
or mortal endeavour
its torments remove?
Your crafty designing
his arts will betray,
for into your scheming
Love will find out a way.

And though ye confine him
with bolts and with bars,
and though ye malign him
and mock at his cares,
the wandering breezes
would bear him away
to make of thy torments
his sport and his play.

Oh wert thou o'er mountains
or far o'er the seas,
I'd climb every mountain,
I'd cross all the seas;
or wert thou a bird
on the sunlighted spray,
to thee, love, to thee,
would I find out the way.