THE DRAGON-FLY.
FROM THE GERMAN.
Flutter, flutter gently by,
Little motley dragon-fly,
On thy four transparent wings!
Hover, hover o’er the rill,
And when weary, sit thee still,
Where the water-lily springs.
More than half thy little life,
Free from passion, free from strife,
Underneath the wave was sweet;
Cool and calm, content to dwell,
Shrouded by thy pliant shell
In a dark and dim retreat.
Now the nymph, transformed, may roam,
A sylph in her aerial home,
Where’er the zephyrs shall invite;
Love is now thy envious care—
Love that dwells in sunny air—
But thy very love is flight.
Heedless of thy coming doom,
O’er thy birthplace and thy tomb
Flutter, little mortal, still!
Though beside thy gladdest hour,
Fate’s destroying mandates lower—
Length of life but lengthens ill.
Confine thy offspring to the stream,
That when new summer suns shall gleam,
They, too, may quit their watery cell;
Then die! I see each weary limb
Declines to fly, declines to swim:
Thou lovely, short-lived sylph, farewell!
Translation of W. Taylor. Johann Gottfried v. Herder, 1744–1803.