Classic Poem

I



I think, I dreamed of falling leaves,

Of wide forests and dark lakes,

Of sad words' echo -

However, I could not understand their meaning.

I think, I dreamed of falling stars,

Of the weeping entreaty of pale eyes,

Of a smile's echo -

However, I could not understand its meaning.

Like falling leaves, like falling stars,

So I saw myself eternally coming and going,

A dream's immortal echo -

However, I could not understand its meaning.


II



In my soul's dark mirror

Are pictures of never-seen seas,

Of abandoned, tragic imaginary lands,

Dissolving into the blue, the thereabouts.

My soul bore blood-purple skies

Shone through by gigantic, crackling suns,

And strangely animated, shimmering gardens,

That steamed with muggy, deadly delights.

And my soul's dark fountain

Created pictures of immense nights,

Moved by nameless cantos

And breaths of eternal powers.

My soul shudders memory-dark,

As if it found itself in everything -

In unfathomable seas and nights,

And deep cantos, without beginning and end.


III



I saw many towns as if robbed by flame

And the times accumulated atrocity after atrocity,

And saw a lot of people putrefy to dust,

And everything float into oblivion.

I saw the gods fall to the night,

The holiest harps powerlessly smashed,

And kindled anew from putrefaction,

A new life swelling to the day.

Swelling to the day and again passing,

The eternally identical tragedy,

That thus we play without understanding,

And its insanity's nightly torture

Wreathes the soft glory of beauty

Like a smiling universe of thorns.