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Translated by J. S. Dwight
FREE as the hawk, | |
| Which, on yon dark morning cloud-pile | |
| With soft-spread pinion resting, | |
| Looks out for prey, | |
| Float my loose song! | 5 |
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| Sure a God hath | |
| Unto each his path | |
| Fore-appointed, | |
| Which the fortunate | |
| Swift to happiest | 10 |
| Goal pursues: | |
| But whom misfortune | |
| Hath frozen to the heart, | |
| He frets him vainly | |
| Against the restraint of | 15 |
| The wire-woven cord, which | |
| Soon shall the bitter scissors | |
| Snap once for all. | |
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| To gloomy thicket | |
| Rushes the reindeer wild, | 20 |
| And with the sparrows have | |
| Long ago the rich folks | |
| Into their swamps for shelter sunk. | |
| Easy to follow the chariot, | |
| When ’t is Fortune drives, | 25 |
| Just as the lumbering cart | |
| Over the hard, smooth road rolls | |
| After a monarch’s march. | |
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| But aside who fareth? | |
| In the woods he loses his path; | 30 |
| Swiftly behind him | |
| The boughs fly together, | |
| The grass stands up again, | |
| The desert o’erwhelms him. | |
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| Ah! but who healeth the pangs of | 35 |
| Him, whose balm becomes poison? | |
| Who but hate for man | |
| From the fulness of love hath drunk? | |
| First despised, and now a despiser, | |
| Wastes he secretly | 40 |
| All his own best worth, | |
| Brooding over himself. | |
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| Is there on thy psalter, | |
| Father of love, one tone | |
| Which his ear would welcome? | 45 |
| O, then, quicken his heart! | |
| Open his beclouded look | |
| Over the thousand fountains | |
| All round him thirsting there | |
| In the desert. | 50 |
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| Thou, who on each bestowest | |
| Joys, a superabundant share, | |
| Bless the brothers of the chase, | |
| Out on track of wild beasts | |
| With danger-loving zeal of youth, | 55 |
| Eager to take life, | |
| Late avengers of mischief, | |
| Which for years hath defied the | |
| Farmer’s threatening cudgel. | |
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| But the lone wanderer wrap | 60 |
| In thy golden cloud-fleeces; | |
| And wreathe with evergreen, | |
| Till the summer roses be blowing, | |
| The dripping ringlets, | |
| O Love, of this thy poet! | 65 |
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| With thy flickering torch thou | |
| Lightest him on | |
| Through the fords, in the night, | |
| Over treacherous footing | |
| On desolate commons. | 70 |
| With the thousand tints of the morn, thou | |
| Smil’st to his heart so! | |
| With the bitter cold blast | |
| Bear’st him gloriously up. | |
| Winter torrents down from the rocks roll | 75 |
| Into his anthems. | |
| An altar of cheerfulest thanks | |
| Seems to him the terrible summit’s | |
| Snow-hung, hoary crown, | |
| Wreathed with rows of pale sprites | 80 |
| By the marvellous people. | |
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| Thou stand’st, with unexplored bosom | |
| Mysteriously prominent, | |
| Over the astonished world, | |
| And look’st from the clouds there | 85 |
| Down on its riches and majesty, | |
| Which thou from the veins of these thy brothers | |
| Bound thee here waterest. | |
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