How they glitter! how they lure me!
Could I but the gulf pass over!
How the secret to discover,
And a bridge across procure me?
8. HELENA.
Thou hast call’d me forth from out of the grave
By means of thy magic will now,
And fill’d me full of love’s fierce glow—
This glow thou never canst still now.
O press thy mouth against my mouth,
Man’s breath with heaven is scented;
Thy very soul I’ll drain to the dregs,
The dead are never contented.
9. THE WISE STARS.
The flowerets sweet are crush’d by the feet
Full soon, and perish despairing;
One passes by, and they must die,
The modest as well as the daring.
The pearls all sleep in the caves of the deep,
Where one finds them, despite wind and weather
A hole is soon bored and they’re strung on a cord,
And there fast yoked together.
The stars are more wise, and keep in the skies,
And hold the earth at a distance;
They shed their light in the heavens so bright,
In safe and endless existence.
10. THE ANGELS.
Faithless as Saint Thomas, never
Could I in the heaven believe
Which both Jew and Priest endeavour
To compel men to receive.