European Elegies/Summer/Her influence
81.HER INFLUENCE
Little star on which I gaze,
Tangled in the moon's mild rays,
In thy golden splendour strays
She whose loss makes dark my days.
Doubtless God desired to raise
Her to be in evening haze
Such a star to light our ways.
Yet my heart devoutly prays
That I may but reach the blaze
Where afar her spirit stays,
There but kiss her longed-for face,
Though thereafter fate conveys
Me to a more hateful place.
Teach, O teach me, thou, to praise
Love that conquers death's dismays,
Star of my life!
Tangled in the moon's mild rays,
In thy golden splendour strays
She whose loss makes dark my days.
Doubtless God desired to raise
Her to be in evening haze
Such a star to light our ways.
Yet my heart devoutly prays
That I may but reach the blaze
Where afar her spirit stays,
There but kiss her longed-for face,
Though thereafter fate conveys
Me to a more hateful place.
Teach, O teach me, thou, to praise
Love that conquers death's dismays,
Star of my life!
From the Old French.