WERE it much to implore thee,
If devoutly, once,
I might kneel before thee
After suffering long?
If devoutly, once,
I might kneel before thee
After suffering long?
Stefan George - Selections from His Works and Others
I lay in the ether recesses,
I ate of the heavenly bread,
Ye sang of celestial journeys,
Ye sang of the glorious dead.
Before my burning eyelids
At last me with slumber beguile,
O! carry me distant and kill me
Flute-players from the Nile!
12
? Auguration
Silvery swallows I saw flying,
Swallows snow and silver white,
In the breezes lullabying,
In the breezes hot and light.
Coloured jackdaws I saw hiding,
Paroquets and kolibri,
Through the magic branches gliding
In the woods of Tusfery.
Great black ravens I saw flutt'ring,
Caddows black and sombre gray,
In the enchanted coppice strutting
'Mid the adders on the way.
And again I see them flying,
Swarms of swallows silver white,
In the breezes lullabying,
In the breezes brisk and bright.
13
?
? FROM
THE BOOK OF THE SHEPHERDS,
OF PRIZE POEMS, SONGS AND
SAYINGS, AND THE HANGING
GARDENS
?
? Songs of a Strolling Player
THROUGH the blossoms softly simmer
Drops profound and fair
Since the light-beams o'er them shimmer.
And if I should languish, jaded,
That which was erewhile unknown
Now to me this day is clear,
That my final hope hath flown:
That your joys for me have faded
New-born sun, and youthful year.
17
?
WERE it much to implore thee,
If devoutly, once,
I might kneel before thee
After suffering long?
And thine hand embracing,
Press it tenderly,
Calm with kisses tracing,
Short and soft and still?
Would'st thou grant my pleading,
If severe and still
Passively conceding,
Thy look should suffer me?
18
? SINCE I be down-cast,
Alone I know one thing,
I dream myself near thee,
A song to thee I sing.
Then methinks I hear
Almost thy voice's sound,
Afar its echo falls,
And calmer grows my care.
19
? SEE my child, I'm going,
For I would not pain thee
Mortal sorrows vainly
Unto thee foreshowing.
I for thee am wary,
See my child I'm going,
Lest erelong thy fairy
Roses pale be growing.
Fain would I have taught thee,
But alone that wrought me,
U. Brief beyond all knowing,
See my child, I'm going.
20
? THIS is just the kind of morning;
Balmy breaths o'er brook and tree
Make thine ear more keen and tender
Unto vows I hid for thee;
Sweet petitions softly dawning.
No more should I be dismayed
If beside the verdant hedges,
We again together strayed,
I would whisper soft my pledges
And to thee all homage tender.
21
? THROUGH the casement a noble-child saw
In the spring-time golden and green,
As he harked to the swallow's lore,
And looked so rejoiced and keen.
