Venice masks

Friday 22 February 2013

Luna - Erik Johan Stagnelius

Deep slumber hung o'er sea and hill and plain;
With pale pink cheek fresh from her watery caves
Slow rose the moon out of the midnight waves,
Like Venus out of ocean born again.
Olympian blazed she on the dark blue main;
'So shall, ye gods,' — hark how my weak hope raves! —
'My happy star ascend the sea that laves
Its shores with grief, and silence all my pain!'
With that there sighed a wandering midnight breeze
High up among the topmost tufted trees,
And o'er the moon's face blew a veil of cloud;
And in the breeze my genius spake, and said,
'While thy heart stirred, thy glimmering hope has fled,
And like the moon lies muffled in a shroud.'

Erik Johan Stagnelius (1793 - 1823) Sweden
Translated by Edmund Gosse
Source: The Sonnets of Europe, ed. by Samuel Waddington. Walter Scott, 1888

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please keep your comments relevant and free from abusive language. Thank you. Note that comments are moderated so it may be a day or two before your comment is posted - irrelevant or abusive comments will not be published.