Wesendonck Songs

In childhood's early days,
I often heard them speak of angels
Who would exchange Heaven's sublime bliss
For the Earth's sun

So that, when an anxious heart in dread
Is full of longing, hidden from the world;
So that, when it wishes silently to bleed
And melt away in a trickle of tears;

So that, when its prayer ardently
Pleads only for release,
Then the angel floats down
And gently lifts it to Heaven.

Yes, an angel has come down to me,
And on glittering wings
It leads, far away from every pain,
My soul now heavenward!

Roaring and rushing wheel of time,
You are the measurer of Eternity;
Shining spheres in the wide universe,
You who surround the world globe,
Eternal creation, halt!
Enough development, let me be!

Cease, generative powers,
The primal thoughts which you are ever creating!
Slow your breathing, still your urge
Silently, only for a second long!
Swelling pulses, fetter your beating,
End, o eternal day of willing!
That in blessed, sweet forgetfulness,
I may measure all my bliss!

When one eye another drinks in bliss,
And one soul into another sinks,
One nature in another finds itself again,
And when each hope's fulfillment is finished,
When the lips are mute in astounded silence,
And no wish more does the heart invent,
Then man recognizes the sign of Eternity,
And solves your riddle, holy Nature!

High-vaulted crowns of leaves,
Canopies of emerald,
You children of distant zones,
Tell me, why do you lament?

Silently you bend your branches,
Draw signs in the air,
And the mute witness to your anguish -
A sweet fragrance - rises.

In desirous longing, wide
You open your arms,
And embrace through insane predilection
The desolate, empty, horrible void.

I know well, poor plants,
A fate that we share,
Though we bathe in light and radiance,
Our homeland is not here!

And how gladly the sun departs
From the empty gleam of the day,
He veils himself, he who suffers truly,
In the darkness of silence.

It becomes quiet, a whispered stirring
Fills uneasily the dark room:
Heavy drops I see hovering
On the green edge of the leaves.

Sun, each evening you weep
Your pretty eyes red,
When, bathing in the mirror of the sea
You are seized by early death.

Yet you rise in all your splendor,
Glory of the gloomy world,
Newly awakening in the morning
Like a proud, victorious hero!

Ah, why should I then lament,
Why, my heart, are you so heavy,
If the sun itself must despair,
If the sun must set?

And if Death gives rise only to Life,
And pain gives way only to bliss,
O how thankful I am, that
Nature gives me such anguish!

Tell me, what kind of wondrous dreams
are embracing my senses,
that have not, like sea-foam,
vanished into desolate Nothingness?

Dreams, that with each passing hour,
each passing day, bloom fairer,
and with their heavenly tidings
roam blissfully through my heart! 

Dreams which, like holy rays of light
sink into the soul,
there to paint an eternal image:
forgiving all, thinking of only One.

Dreams which, when the Spring sun
kisses the blossoms from the snow,
so that into unsuspected bliss
they greet the new day,

so that they grow, so that they bloom,
and dreaming, bestow their fragrance,
these dreams gently glow and fade on your breast,
and then sink into the grave.