Erik Johan Stagnelius (1793–1823)

Translated by Edmund Gosse

DEEP slumber hung o’er sea and hill and plain;

With pale pink cheek fresh from her watery caves

Slow rose the Moon out of the midnight waves;

Like Venus out of ocean born again,

Olympian blazed she on the dark blue main;

“So shall, ye Gods!” hark how my weak hope raves!

“My happy star ascend the sea that laves

Its shores with grief, and silence all my pain!”

With that there sighed a wandering midnight breeze,

High up among the topmost tufted trees,

And o’er the moon’s face blew a veil of cloud;

And in the breeze my genius spake, and said,

“While thy heart stirs, thy glimmering hope has fled,

And like the moon lies muffled in a shroud.”