J.C. von Zedlitz: "A Core of Light"

Excerpt, "Translations From The German Poets." Edward Stanhope Pearson. 1879.

A core of light with thousand
Rays is streaming
Its God-enkindled origin to warrant.
Tis Genius is the Sun which
Life awakens
And ripens all, a fertilizing torrent.

What glass soever make her
Image picture
May she in song her dauntless
Flight be winging,
All heart together bringing,
The Highest still she seeketh,
That she knoweth.

Long since the common world
To wreck had tumbled,
Without her, and long since to
Dust had crumbled,
The halls of that fair fane where
Heaven's fire gloweth.

She is the spring whence
Life Eternal trilleth,
From life she comes,
She only Life instilleth.

Goethe: "To A Golden Heart, Worn Round His Neck"

Excerpt, "The Sonnets of Europe: A Volume of Translations." Selected and Arranged with Notes by Samuel Waddington. 1885.

Remembrance of Joys long passed away,
Relic, from which as yet I cannot part,
O, hast thou power to lengthen
love’s short day?
Stronger thy chain than that which
bound the heart?

Lili, I fly – yet still thy fetters press me
In distant valley, or far lonely wood.
Still with a struggling sigh of
pain confess thee
The mistress of my soul in
every mood.

The bird may burst the silken chain
that bound him,
Flying to the green home, which
fits him best;
But, ah! He bears the prisoner’s
badge around him,
Still by the piece about his neck distressed.
He ne’er can breathe his free
wild notes again;
They’re stifled by the pressure of his chain.

Nicolaus Lenau: “Invocation of Night”

Excerpt, "Translations From The German Poets." Edward Stanhope Pearson. 1879

Darkbrow’d eye, O rest upon me,
Fill me with thy fullest might,
Earnest, mild, with dreamful plumage,
Sweet, unfathomable Night!

In thy magic darkness, wrap me
Draw this world from out my view,
That athwart my inmost being
Thou may’st hover through and through!

Torquato Tasso: “Love Unloved”

Excerpt, "The Sonnets of Europe: A Volume of Translations." Selected and Arranged with Notes by Samuel Waddington. 1885.

Ah! Wherefore sigh for him
who sighs not too?
Any love where love again
will never grow?
Why should these bitter tears
incessant flow,
While not one drop has wet
the cheek for you?

Why pale for him that keeps
his wonted hue?
Why in your eye such beams of
pleasure glow,
While still you turn to one
averted so,
And gaze intent, with passion
ever new?

If love, at will of others,
lives or dies,
Let this thy unrequited flame expire,
And dim with grief no more
these radiant eyes.
Let absence change thy tender
heart to stone.

Or, if it must be kindled, let the fire
Light in thy breast, but not
in thine alone.

Petrarch: “The Buried Heart”

Excerpt, "The Sonnets of Europe: A Volume of Translations." Selected and Arranged with Notes by Samuel Waddington. 1885.

Not skies serene, with glittering stars inlaid,
Nor gallant ships o’er tranquil ocean dancing,
Nor gay careering knights in arms advancing,
Nor wild herds bounding through
the forest glade,
Nor tidings new of happiness delayed,

Nor poesie, Love’s witchery enhancing,
Nor lady’s song beside clear fountain glancing,
In beauty’s pride, with chastity arrayed;
Nor aught of lovely, aught of gay in show,

Shall touch my heart now cold within her tomb
Who was erewhile my life and light below!
So heavy – tedious – sad – my days unblest,
That I, with strong desire,
invoke Death’s gloom,

Her to behold, whom ne’er to have
seen were best!

G.A.Bürger: "The Heart Without a Home"

Excerpt, "The Sonnets of Europe: A Volume of Translations." Selected and Arranged with Notes by Samuel Waddington. 1885.

Long like a dove by the fierce falcon driven,
Hither and thither wandered sad my Love;
And simply it imagined, like a dove,
That it had reached at length
its tranquil heaven.

Ah Faith! To fond delusions vainly given;
And Fate! Conceived by none but
those who prove;
That home from which it dreaded no remove,
Is by the instant stroke of lightning riven!

Hither and thither still it wanders now;
Poor little dove! Twixt earth
and heaven remains
No object for its wing; the Fates allow
No kindred Heart in solace of its pains;
Not one this desolated Earth contains
That might return its warmth,
That might reward its vow.

August von Platen: "My Heart, Thy Voice"

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Excerpt, "The Poetry of Germany, Consisting from Upwards of Seventy of the Most Celebrated Poets." Translated into English Verse by Alfred Baskerville. 1853.

MY HEART, THY VOICE

O let me read thee well,
Thy heart I fain would see.
Oh what a magic spell
Speaks in thy voice to me!

So many phrases rush
At random in our ear,
And when their echoes hush,
The heart is cold and drear.

E’en when thy distant voice,
Doth in my ear resound.
I listen and rejoice,
And ne’er forget the sound.

I tremble as I glow,
With flames I cannot quell;
My heart, thy voice, they know,
Each other but too well.
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