Ne’er to stir thy bosom thought I,
For thy love I never pray’d;
Silently to live but sought I
Where thy breath its balm convey’d.
Yet thou spurn’st me in my sadness,
Bitter words thy mouth doth speak,
In my senses riots madness,
And my heart is faint and weak
And my limbs, in wanderings dreary,
Sadly drag I, full of gloom,
Till I lay my head all weary
In a chilly distant tomb.
6.
Patience, surly pilot, shortly
To the port I’ll follow you;
From two maidens I’m departing,
From my love and Europe too.
Blood-spring, from mine eyes ’gin running,
Blood-spring, from my body flow,
So that I then, with my hot blood,
May write down my tale of woe.
Ah, my body, wherefore shudder
Thus to-day my blood to see?
Many years before thee standing
Pale, heart-bleeding, saw’st thou me!
Know’st thou still the olden story
Of the snake in Paradise,
Who, a cursed apple giving,
Caused our parents endless sighs?
Apples brought all evils on us,
Death through Eve by apples came;
Flames on Troy were brought by Eris,—
Both thou broughtest, death and flame!