TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF MATTHISSON BY WILLIAM PITT PALMER.
Grove! embathed in peace celestial,
As in dew the rose’s bowers,
Where Hesperia’s golden fruitage
Ripens amid silver flowers;
Where a rosy-colored ether
Ever cloudless bends above,
Through whose calm abysses never
Breathed the sigh of slighted love.
Psyche, with a strange emotion,
Half enraptured, half dismayed,
Just escaped her earthly vesture,
Trembling greets thy glimmering shade:
Where, O joy! no misty mantle
Veils her primal purity;
And her immaterial pinions,
Like an angel’s, wander free.
Ha! e’en now o’er paths of roses,
Glorious shape of light, she sweeps,
Tow’rd the shadow-peopled valley
Where the sacred Lethe sleeps;
Thither drawn by magic suasion,
As by gentle spirits led,
Fain she sees the silver billows,
And their flowery shores outspread.
Kneeling low with sweet foreboding
Griefs oblivious draught to taste,
Softly shines her trembling image
In that faithful mirror traced;
As from ocean’s tranquil waters
Fair the cloudless moon outbeams,
Or from crystal stream reflected
Hesper’s golden cresset gleams.
Not in vain she quaffs of Lethe;
For, anon, within the stream
Sinks the night-part of her being,
Like the phantom of a dream;
And from out the vale of shadows
Bright she soars on fearless wing,
To the hills whose golden blossoms
Smile in everlasting spring.
What an awe-inspiring silence!
Softer calm than zephyr breathes
Murmurs in the laurel foliage
And the amaranthine wreaths:
Thus in sacred stillness rested
Air and wave—in such repose
Slumbered nature, when from ocean
Anadyomene rose.
What an unaccustomed glory!
Earth! though fair Aurora be,
Never from her vernal features
Shone such magic light for thee:
Lo! the ivy’s glossy tendrils
Bathed in purple lustre gleam,
And the flowers that crown each fountain
With a starry splendor beam!
Thus in silvan wilds the dawning,
When the modest Cynthia spied
From the skies her sleeping lover,
And descended to his side;
While the fields were bathed in brightness,
And in magic tones expressed,
Heavenly greetings murmured sweetly—
Hail, Endymion the blest!