Roses
IN white and glowing blossomy undulation,
From shrubs encircling distant heights and hollows,
You lost yourself .
IN white and glowing blossomy undulation,
From shrubs encircling distant heights and hollows,
You lost yourself .
Stefan George - Selections from His Works and Others
Then "mid the gray there peeps a glimmer soon,
A new light rises 'neath the evening star,
A grass-plot stretches o'er a crag afar.
Along there glides among the violets strewn
A row of slender stems, like lances free.
The azure vault in silver shimmers soft,
A dewy breeze with fragrance soars aloft. . . .
And blossoms fall upon an open sea.
54
? LANDSCAPE II
DOTH live for thee again, Beloved, that October,
That stroll we took--and how we went astray,
When midst the bronze-like beams of fir-trees dark
and sober,
And flaming crimson leaves we made our way
From tree to tree--upon the pathway silent vagrants,
Divided, and in loving strife beset,
While each in secret hearkened, midst the foliage
fragrance,
To music of a dream that is not yet.
At first, the elf-like laughter of a streamlet roaming
Down in the valley, served us still as guide,
Which hastened onward, growing softer and more
gloaming,
Till unobserved its sobbing echoes died.
So charmed were we, so long we tarried o'er this
ramble,
That soon the path forsook us, soon the light,
Until a child, who late plucked berries from the
bramble,
Across the thicket guided us aright.
Along the lichened pathway of the leaf-crowned alley,
With faltering footsteps tardily we passed,
And then through ever lighter-glimmering twigs, the
valley
With distant dome re-opened forth at last.
55
? Our loving arms towards the mossy bark extended,
We bid farewell unto the final tree,
Then down through flowers towards our lovely goal
descended:
And earth and ether swam in a golden sea.
56
?
Roses
IN white and glowing blossomy undulation,
From shrubs encircling distant heights and hollows,
You lost yourself . . . . sang musing, as you hastened
Within the fragrant thicket. . . you, abandoned quite
Within the rosy sheen. At noonday tumbled
Leaflets, changing with delight upon your lips,
And as you slept there played with you, bunches,
bushes,
Billows of roses.
That eve should still have found you here! you
wander
In shrubs where you no longer know the way
Yea, blind and wounded by the thorny kiss . .
Now tarry there--your head bowed low and bleeding.
And now the blossoms by the night be stirred
Around you surge, and may their purple fall
To veil from sight your shame. Thus learn of
mourning
And strife from roses,
57
? Songs
PRELUDE
STARS ascend up there
And strike up the song,
Stars descend up there
With the counter-song.
