European Elegies/Autumn (1)/Life's voyage

by Simon Jenko

21.LIFE'S VOYAGE

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My distrest spirit
Reels in the rushing
Whirlpool of crisis
Greedy and crushing.
Life's fragile shallop
Hurries me tragic
On through the stormtost
Darkness pelagic.
Vast seas appal me.
Ah, to sail shoreward!
But in wild thunder
Winds thrust me forward.
Surge-serpents hiss us;
Ship-thews are shaken;
Low in the green gulfs
Lurks the foul kraken.—
Sweet stars in heaven
Guard from disaster!
Great wind of mercy
Be my mild master!

From the Slovene of Simon Jenko.