European Elegies/Winter/Unrest
58.UNREST
Happy is he whose days are full of peace,
Who sits beside his hearth in warm content,
Who even in reverse is reverent:
For him life's paths have no asperities.
Who sits beside his hearth in warm content,
Who even in reverse is reverent:
For him life's paths have no asperities.
But hapless they who chafe at fate's caprice,
Whose souls in bitter sorrowing are spent,
For if life's cup with slime and gall be blent
The groans of black disgust bring no release.
Whose souls in bitter sorrowing are spent,
For if life's cup with slime and gall be blent
The groans of black disgust bring no release.
Like the eternal birds that change their skies
And in this land have no abiding place,
My spirit burns in longing to depart.
And in this land have no abiding place,
My spirit burns in longing to depart.
Long since is dead my faith of other days,
And yet on restless wings my yearnings rise
In vague and hopeless hunger of the heart.
And yet on restless wings my yearnings rise
In vague and hopeless hunger of the heart.
From the Rumanian of Alexandru Sihleanu.