Poems (Hooper)/Ich Habe Geliebet
ICH HABE GELIEBET.
Yes, I have loved thee, and how well and madly, Thou, cold of heart, shall never, never know!I will not feed thy vanity by telling How bitterly the tears of manhood flow!Yes, I have loved thee with the deep devotion A woman wins but once, and nevermore;Let once Love's bark be wrecked upon Life's waters, There comes no second to the self-same shore.
O I have wasted Love's celestial incense Before thy shrine, thou idol wrought of clay!Have poured my heart's whole wealth upon thine altar, And now I turn in loathing scorn away.Yes, I have wakened from my charméd dreaming To yield me to thy witchery no more.I would not sorrow could I but respect thee; But I despise where late I did adore.
I gather up my heart's poor shattered fragments (That heart thou'st broken, but mayst not retain), And forth into the world I bend my footsteps, Never, I trust, to see thy face again.I ask no vengeance from the avenging Future. Cold heart and shallow brain, go free, go free!I do not ask thee, in thy joyous hours, To blight thy gayety with thoughts of me!
Unbidden comes the day of retribution; Surely, though late, its sun shall o'er thee shine,When thou, with' worn-out grace and faded beauty, Would sell thy very soul for love like mine.And if the spirits of the ancient Sibyl My lip and soul to prophecy had mov'd,I could for thee foretell a doom no darker Than that which shall be thine—to live unloved.
And when the rose hue from thy cheek has faded, The gloss departed from thy golden hair;When e'en thy fondest flatterer—thy mirror, Bids thee confess thou art no longer fair;When the bright dreams of youth have left thee wholly, And thou, to muse upon the Past, art free;When friend and flatterer alike desert thee, Then is mine hour. Yes, then remember me!
Remember me! for I have loved thee truly, And would have loved thee to life's latest hour; I would have strewn thy earthly path with roses (Mine all the thorns, so thou hadst but the flower).Yes, I have loved thee—take this last confession From one whose heart from aught save scorn is free,Who deems thee now too pitiful for hatred: I shall forget! but thou—remember me!