Bell with tongue of silver tone,
I would make thy secret known -
Cooped with screech-owl, flittermouse,
In the crumbling belfry-house,
Tell me whence thy festal ring -
Who hath taught thee so to sing?
"Long in murky shaft I lay,
Stygian night for all my day;
Here, where mighty winds blow free,
Here, from sunlit spire, I see
Beauty born of human pain -
Now you will not ask again.
Carl Spitteler (1845 — 1924) Switzerland
Translated by Ethel Colburn Mayne
Source: Ross' Columns (taken from Selected Poems translated by Ethel Colburn Mayne and James F. Muirhead)
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