Her hands the mother folded, She felt she knew not how; With meekness sang she and softly: “O Mary, blessed be thou!”
A vision I dreamt of a lovely child. She wore her hair in tresses; In the blue nights of summer so calm and mild We sat in the greenwood’s recesses.
In mutual rapture and torture we vied, We loved and exchanged loving kisses; The yellow stars in the heavens all sigh’d And seem’d to envy our blisses.
I now am awake, and around me gaze In the darkness, alone and despairing; The stars in the heavens are shedding their rays In silence and all-uncaring.
When at evening in the forest, In the dreamlike wood I rove, Ever doth thy slender figure Close beside me softly move.
See I not thy gentle features? Is it not thy veil that stirs? Can it be the moonlight only Breaking through the gloomy firs?
Can it be mine own tears only That I hear all-lightly flow? Or my loved one, dost thou really Close beside me weeping go?
O’er the silent strand of ocean Night appears in gloomy splendour From the clouds the moon is breaking, As the waves these whispers send her
“Yonder mortal, is he foolish, “Or is he by love tormented, “That he looks so sad, yet joyous, “So distress’d, yet so contented?”
But the moon, with smiles replying, Loudly said: “Full well I know it; “He is both in love and foolish, “And moreover is a poet.”
’Tis surely a snowwhite seamew That I see fluttering there Just over the darksome billows; The moon stands high in the air.
The shark and the ray snap fiercely From out of the wave, and stare; The seamew is rising and falling, The moon stands high in the air.
O dear and wandering spirit, So sad and full of despair! Too near art thou to the water, The moon stands high in the air.
I knew that thou didst love me, I knew it long, dear maid; Yet when thou didst confess it I felt full sore afraid.
I clamber’d up the mountain With loud exulting song, At sunset rambled weeping The ocean shore along.
The sun my heart resembleth, So flaming to the sight, And in a loving ocean It setteth, great and bright.
How curiously the seamew Looks over at us, dear, Because against thy lips I So firmly press my ear!
She maybe would discover What from thy mouth did flow,-- If words alone or kisses Thou in my ear didst throw.