Would I were free as are my dreams - August von Platen-Hallermünde

Would I were free as are my dreams,
  Sequestered from the garish crowd
To glide by banks of quiet streams
  Cooled by the shadow-drifting cloud!

Free to shake off this weary weight
  Of human sin, and rest instead
On nature's heart inviolate—
  All summer singing o'er my head!

There would I never disembark,
  Nay, only graze the flowery shore
To pluck a rose beneath the lark,
  Then go my liquid way once more,

And watch, far off, the drowsy lines
  Of herded cattle crop and pass,
The vintagers among the vines,
  The mowers in the dewy grass;

And nothing would I drink or eat
  Save heaven's clear sunlight and the spring
Of earth's own welling waters sweet,
  That never make the pulses sting.

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August von Platen-Hallermünde (1796 - 1835) Germany
Translated by Percy MacKaye
Source: The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5, Patrons' Edition, 1915 [at Project Gutenberg]