love poetry

VI

Within the surface of Time's fleeting river
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder
With an earth-awakening blast
Through the caverns of the past:
(Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:)

Translated from the German

Ah! grasp the dire dagger and couch the fell spear,
If vengeance and death to thy bosom be dear,
The dastard shall perish, death's torment shall prove,
For fate and revenge are decreed from above.

Ah! where is the hero, whose nerves strung by youth,
Will defend the firm cause of justice and truth;
With insatiate desire whose bosom shall swell,
To give up the oppressor to judgement and Hell —

For him shall the fair one twine chaplets of bays,
To him shall each warrior give merited praise,

LOVE

What if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved
While yet on earth and was beloved in turn,
And still remembered every look and tone
Of that dear earthly sister who was left
Among the unwise virgins at the gate, —
Itself admitted with the bridegroom's train, —
What if this spirit redeemed, amid the host
Of chanting angels, in some transient lull
Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry
Of its lost darling, whom in evil hour
Some wilder pulse of nature led astray

IX

Him loved she. Lo, now was he veiled:
Over sea stood a swelled cloud-rack:
The fishing-boat havenward sailed,
Bent abeam with a whitened track,
Surprised, fast hauling the net,
As it flew: sea dashed, earth shook.
She said: Is it night? O not yet!
With a travail of thoughts in her look.
The mountain heaved up to its peak:
Sea darkened: earth gathered her fowl:
Of bird or of branch rose the shriek.
Night? but never so fell a scowl
Wore night, nor the sky since then

Higher far,
Upward into the pure realm,
Over sun and star,
Over the flickering Daemon film,
Thou must mount for love;
Into vision where all form
In one only form dissolves;
In a region where the wheel
On which all beings ride
Visibly revolves;
Where the starred, eternal worm
Girds the world with bound and term;
Where unlike things are like;
Where good and ill,
And joy and moan,
Melt into one.

There Past, Present, Future shoot
Triple blossoms from one root;

Venus, when her son was lost,
Cried him up and down the coast,
In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
And told the truant by his marks, —
Golden curls, and quiver, and bow.
This befell long ago.
Time and tide are strangely changed,
Men and manners much deranged:
None will now find Cupid latent
By this foolish antique patent.
He came late along the waste,
Shod like a traveller for haste;
With malice dared me to proclaim him,
That the maids and boys might name him.

Boy no more, he wears all coats,

Array thee, love, array thee, love,
In all thy best array thee;
The sun 's below — the moon 's above —
And Night and Bliss obey thee.
Put on thee all that's bright and rare,
The zone, the wreath, the gem.
Not so much gracing charms so fair,
As borrowing grace from them.
Array thee, love, array thee, love,
In all that's bright array thee;
The sun 's below — the moon 's above —

Das Glück, das gestern mich geküsst

The joy that kissed me yesterday
Has disappeared already;
Long years ago I found it so:
True love is never steady.

Oft curiosity has drawn
Some lovely ladies toward me;
But when they looked deep in my heart
They left, and then abhorred me.

Some have grown pale before they went,
And some with laughter cleft me;
But only Kitty really cared —

Ich liebe solche weisse Glieder

I love this white and slender body,
These limbs that answer Love's caresses,
Passionate eyes, and forehead covered
With heavy waves of thick, black tresses.

You are the very one I've searched for
In many lands, in every weather.
You are my sort; you understand me;
As equals we can talk together.

In me you've found the man you care for.

In welche soll ich mich verlieben

Which of them shall I fall in love with?
Both of them make my senses swirl.
The mother's still a lovely woman;
The daughter's an enchanting girl.

In those white arms and virgin beauties
My trembling heart is almost caught!
But thrilling too are genial glances
That understand each casual thought.

My heart resembles our gray brother,