Ye birds, so wondrously sly:
Of my sorrow ye fain would bereave me,
On your friendship I cannot rely.
4.
Sweet love, lay thy hand on my heart, and tell
If thou hearest the knocks in that narrow cell?
There dwells there a carpenter, cunning is he,
And slily he’s hewing a coffin for me.
He hammers and knocks by day and by night,
My slumber already has banish’d outright;
Oh, Master Carpenter, prythee make haste,
That I some slumber at length may taste.
5.
Beauteous cradle of my sorrow,
Beauteous grave of all my peace,
Beauteous town, we part to-morrow,
Fare thee well, our ties must cease!
Fare thee well, thou threshold holy,
Where my loved one sets her feet!
Fare thee well, thou spot so holy,
Where we chanced at first to meet!
Would that we had been for ever
Strangers, queen of hearts so fair!
Then it would have happen’d never
That I’m driven to despair.
Ne’er to stir thy bosom thought I,
For thy love I never pray’d;
Silently to live but sought I
Where thy breath its balm convey’d.
Yet thou spurn’st me in my sadness,
Bitter words thy mouth doth speak,
In my senses riots madness,
And my heart is faint and weak
And my limbs, in wanderings dreary,
Sadly drag I, full of gloom,
Till I lay my head all weary
In a chilly distant tomb.
Patience, surly pilot, shortly
To the port I’ll follow you;
From two maidens I’m departing,
From my love and Europe too.
Blood-spring, from mine eyes ’gin running,
Blood-spring, from my body flow,
So that I then, with my hot blood,
May write down my tale of woe.
Ah, my body, wherefore shudder
Thus to-day my blood to see?
Many years before thee standing
Pale, heart-bleeding, saw’st thou me!
Know’st thou still the olden story
Of the snake in Paradise,
Who, a cursed apple giving,
Caused our parents endless sighs?
Apples brought all evils on us,
Death through Eve by apples came;
Flames on Troy were brought by Eris—
Both thou broughtest, death and flame!
7.
Hill and castle fair are glancing
O’er the clear and glassy Rhine,
And my bark is gaily dancing
In the sunlight all-divine.
On the golden waters, breaking
Sportively, my calm eyes rest;
Gently are the feelings waking
That I nourish’d in my breast.
With a fond and kindly greeting,
Lure me those deep waters bright,
Yet I know their smoothness cheating
Hides beneath it death and night.
Joy above, below destruction—
Thou’rt my loved one’s image, stream
Blissful is her smile’s seduction,
Kind and gentle can she seem.
8.
First methought in my affliction,
I can never stand the blow.—
Yet I did—strange contradiction!
How I did, ne’er seek to know.
9.
With rose and cypress and tinsel gay,
I fain would adorn in a charming way
This book, as though a coffin it were,
And in it my olden songs inter.
O, could I but bury love also there!
On love’s grave grows rest’s floweret fair;
’Tis there ’tis pluck’d in its sweetest bloom—
For me ’twill not blossom till in my tomb.
Here now are the songs that formerly rose,
As wild as the lava from Etna that flows,
From out the depths of my feelings true,
And glittering sparks around them threw!
Like corpses now lie they, all silent and dumb,
And cold and pallid as mist they’ve become;
But the olden glow their revival will bring
When the spirit of love waves o’er them its wing.
In my heart a presentiment loudly cries:
The spirit of love will over them rise:
This book will hereafter come to thy hand,
My sweetest love, in a distant land.
Then the spell on my song at an end will be,
The pallid letters will gaze on thee,
Imploringly gaze on thy beauteous eyes,
And whisper with sadness and loving sighs.
3. ROMANCES.
1. THE MOURNFUL ONE.
Every heart with pain is smitten
When they see the stripling pale,
Who upon his face bears written
Grief and sorrow’s mournful tale.
Breezes with compassion lightly
Fan his burning brow the while,
And his bosom many a sprightly
Damsel fair would fain beguile.
From the city’s ceaseless bustle
To the wood for peace he flies.
Merrily the leaves there rustle,
Merrier still