Night, and the heavens beam serene with peace, Like a pure heart benignly smiles the moon. Oh, guard thy blessed beauty from mischance, This I beseech thee in all tender love....
Will night already spread her wings and weave Her dusky robe about the day's bright form, Boldly the sun's fair countenance displacing, And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?...
The grass of fifty Aprils hath waved green Above the spent heart, the Olympian head, The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen, Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled;...
My two-score years and ten are over, Never again shall youth be mine. The years are ready-winged for flying, What crav'st thou still of feast and wine?...
And so we twain must part! Oh linger yet, Let me still feed my glance upon thine eyes. Forget not, love, the days of our delight, And I our nights of bliss shall ever prize....
"Am I sipping the honey of the lips? Am I drunk with the wine of a kiss? Have I culled the flowers of the cheek, Have I sucked the fresh fragrance of the breath?...
Now the dreary winter's over, Fled with him are grief and pain, When the trees their bloom recover, Then the soul is born again. Spikenard blossoms shaking, Perfume all the air,...
"With tears thy grief thou dost bemoan, Tears that would melt the hardest stone, Oh, wherefore sing'st thou not the vine? Why chant'st thou not the praise of wine? It chases pain with cunning art,...
The Landgrave Hermann held a gathering Of minstrels, minnesingers, troubadours, At Wartburg in his palace, and the knight, Sir Tannhauser of France, the greatest bard,...
Wake, Israel, wake! Recall to-day The glorious Maccabean rage, The sire heroic, hoary-gray, His five-fold lion-lineage: The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God, The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.*...
I saw in dream the spirits unbegot, Veiled, floating phantoms, lost in twilight space; For one the hour had struck, he paused; the place Rang with an awful Voice: "Soul, choose thy lot!...
There was a man who watched the river flow Past the huge town, one gray November day. Round him in narrow high-piled streets at play The boys made merry as they saw him go,...
Across the Eastern sky has glowed The flicker of a blood-red dawn, Once more the clarion cock has crowed, Once more the sword of Christ is drawn. A million burning rooftrees light...
1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns. ...
Kindle the taper like the steadfast star Ablaze on evening's forehead o'er the earth, And add each night a lustre till afar An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth....