The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06

The violets titter, caressing,
Peeping up as the planets appear,
And the roses, their warm love confessing,
Whisper words, soft-perfumed, to each ear.

And, gracefully lurking or leaping,
The gentle gazelles come round:
While afar, deep rushing and sweeping,
The waves of the Ganges sound.

We'll lie there in slumber sinking
Neath the palm-trees by the stream,
Rapture and rest deep drinking,
Dreaming the happiest dream.

10[14 - Translator: Charles Wharton Stork.]

The lotos flower is troubled
By the sun's too garish gleam,
She droops, and with folded petals
Awaiteth the night in a dream.

'Tis the moon has won her favor,
His light her spirit doth wake,
Her virgin bloom she unveileth
All gladly for his dear sake.

Unfolding and glowing and shining
She yearns toward his cloudy height;
She trembles to tears and to perfume
With pain of her love's delight.

11[15 - Translator: Charles Wharton Stork.]

The Rhine's bright wave serenely
Reflects as it passes by
Cologne that lifts her queenly
Cathedral towers on high.

A picture hangs in the dome there,
On leather with gold bedight,
Whose beauty oft when I roam there
Sheds hope on my troubled night.

For cherubs and flowers are wreathing
Our Lady with tender grace;
Her eyes, cheeks, and lips half-breathing
Resemble my loved one's face.

12[16 - Translator: Sir Theodore Martin. Permission William Blackwood & Sons, London.]

I am not wroth, my own lost love, although
My heart is breaking—wroth I am not, no!
For all thou dost in diamonds blaze, no ray
Of light into thy heart's night finds its way.

I saw thee in a dream. Oh, piteous sight!
I saw thy heart all empty, all in night;
I saw the serpent gnawing at thy heart;
I saw how wretched, O my love, thou art!

13[17 - Translator: Sir Theodore Martin. Permission William Blackwood & Sons, London.]

When thou shalt lie, my darling, low
In the dark grave, where they hide thee,
Then down to thee I will surely go,
And nestle in beside thee.

Wildly I'll kiss and clasp thee there,
Pale, cold, and silent lying;
Shout, shudder, weep in dumb despair,
Beside my dead love dying.

The midnight calls, up rise the dead,
And dance in airy swarms there;
We twain quit not our earthly bed,
I lie wrapt in your arms there.

Up rise the dead; the Judgment-day
To bliss or anguish calls them;
We twain lie on as before we lay,
And heed not what befalls them.

14[18 - Translator: J.E. Wallis. Permission The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd., London.]

A young man loved a maiden,
But she for another has sigh'd;
That other, he loves another,
And makes her at length his bride.

The maiden marries, in anger,
The first adventurous wight
That chance may fling before her;
The youth is in piteous plight.

The story is old as ages,
Yet happens again and again;
The last to whom it happen'd,
His heart is rent in twain.