THE STREAM OF THE ROCK.
FROM THE GERMAN.
Unperishing youth!
Thou leapest from forth
The cleft of the rock;
No mortal eye saw
The mighty one’s cradle;
No ear ever heard
The lofty one’s lisp in the murmuring spring
How beautiful art thou,
In silvery locks!
How terrible art thou,
When the cliffs are resounding in thunder around!
Thee feareth the fir-tree;
Thou crushest the fir-tree
From its root to its crown.
The cliffs flee before thee;
The cliffs thou engraspest,
And hurlest them, scornful, like pebbles adown.
The sun weaves around thee
The beams of its splendor;
It painteth with hues of the heavenly iris,
The uprolling clouds of the silvery spray.
Why speedest thou downward,
Toward the green sea?
Is it not well by the nearer heaven?
Not well by the sounding cliff?
Not well by the o’erhanging forest of oaks?
O hasten not so
Toward the green sea!
Youth! O now thou art strong, like a god!
Free like a god!
Beneath thee is smiling the peacefullest stillness,
The tremulous swell of the slumberous sea;
Now silvered o’er by the swimming moonshine;
Now golden and red in the light of the west.
Youth, O what is this silken quiet;
What is the smile of the friendly moonlight—
The purple and gold of the evening sun,
To him whom the feeling of bondage oppresses?
Now streamest thou wild
As thy heart may prompt!
But below oft ruleth the fickle tempest,
Oft the stillness of death, in the subject sea!
O hasten not so
Toward the green sea!
Youth, O now thou art strong, like a god,
Free, like a god!
Translation of W. W. Story. Fr. Leop. Stolberg, 1750–1819.
