European Elegies/Spring/May night
63.MAY NIGHT
The lull of night is laid o'er lane and lea;
The wind is mute; but moonlight's minor key
Keeps faltering faint romances.
How strange on such a night to sit alone
When May is sweet and moonbeams' silver tone
Is tuned to elfin dances!
The wind is mute; but moonlight's minor key
Keeps faltering faint romances.
How strange on such a night to sit alone
When May is sweet and moonbeams' silver tone
Is tuned to elfin dances!
The lull of night is laid o'er lane and lea;
Low music murmurs, but the melody
I cannot quite discover.
It is a dream long dead that comes and goes,
A dream of vanished seasons, and a rose
Reft from a lonely lover.
Low music murmurs, but the melody
I cannot quite discover.
It is a dream long dead that comes and goes,
A dream of vanished seasons, and a rose
Reft from a lonely lover.
And so my sorrow vibrates to earth's verge;
The farthest darkness echoes back the dirge
In stress of yearning shaken,
Sighing in pine-tree tops, in sallows sobbing. . .
Ah, God, on this May night how sorely throbbing
Is my sad heart forsaken!
The farthest darkness echoes back the dirge
In stress of yearning shaken,
Sighing in pine-tree tops, in sallows sobbing. . .
Ah, God, on this May night how sorely throbbing
Is my sad heart forsaken!
From the Norwegian of Vilhelm Krag.