A lonely young wife In her dreaming discerns A lily-decked pool With a border of ferns, And a beautiful child, With butterfly wings, Trips down to the edge of the water and sings:...
This lovely lily, so pure and white, Seems covered o'er with celestial light; As if it grew on the "Tree of Life," And not down here, in this world of strife; Too pure for earth it now seems to be;...
There she rose as white as death, Stars above and stars beneath; Where the ripples brake in splendor To a million, million starlets Twinkling on lake-lilies tender, Rocking to the ripple barlets....
[The French is by Bosquillon, which I translated as under, in a beautiful Swedish island in the Baltic, as I sat by the side of a fine clear stream of rock-water.]
They hide in the brook when I seek to draw nearer, Laughing amain when I feign to depart; Often I hear them, now faint and now clearer Innocent bold or so sweetly discreet....
"Buy,--who'll buy?" In the market-place, Out of the market din and clatter, The quack with his puckered persuasive face Patters away in the ancient patter.
Farewell, farewell, to my mother's own daughter. The child that she wet-nursed is lapp'd in the wave; The Mussulman, coming to fish in this water, Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave. ...
See! the milk-white doe is wounded. He will follow as it bounds Through the woods. His horn has sounded. Echoing, for his men and hounds. But no answering bugle blew. He has lost his retinue...
Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled Thy plough to ring this solitary tree With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field, In cool green radius twice my length may be -...
From bowers of gods the bees came down to man. On Mount Hymettus,[2] first, they say, They made their home, and stored away The treasures which the zephyrs fan....
However certain of the way thou art, Take not the self-appointed leader's part. Follow no man, and by no man be led, And no man lead. AWAKE, and go ahead. Thy path, though leading straight unto the goal...
When I a ship see on the seas, Cuff'd with those wat'ry savages, And therewithal behold it hath In all that way no beaten path, Then, with a wonder, I confess Thou art our way i' th' wilderness;...
Love entered in my heart one day, A sad, unwelcome guest; But when he begged that he might stay, I let him wait and rest. He broke my sleep with sorrowing, And shook my dreams with tears,...
Is it the hour? We leave this resting-place Made fair by one another for a while. Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace; The long road then, unlit by your faint smile....
The way her silky garments undulate It seems she's dancing as she walks along, Like serpents that the sacred charmers make To move in rhythms of their waving wands. ...