Russia, that vast empire fair,
Might be tolerably pleasant,
But I should not like the knout
That’s their usual winter present.
Sadly gaze I up on high,
Where the countless stars are gleaming,
But I nowhere can discern
Where my own bright star is beaming.
Perhaps in heaven’s gold labyrinth
It has got benighted lately,
As I on this bustling earth
Have myself been wandering greatly.
AN OLD SONG.
Thou now art dead, and thou knowest it not,
The light of thine eyes is quench’d and forgot;
Thy rosy mouth is pallid for ever,
And thou art dead, and wilt live again never.
’Twas in a dreary midsummer night,
I bore thee myself to the grave outright;
The nightingales sang their soft lamentations,
And after us follow’d the bright constellations.
As through the forest the train moved along,
They made it resound with the litany’s song;
The firs, in their mantles of mourning veil’d closely,
The prayers for the dead repeated morosely.
And as o’er the willowy lake we flew
The elfins were dancing full in our view;
They suddenly stopp’d in wondering fashion,
And seem’d to regard us with looks of compassion.
And when we had reach’d the grave, full soon
From out of the heavens descended the moon,
And preach’d a sermon, ’midst tears and condoling
While in the distance the bells were tolling.