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(From “The Saint and the Beasts”)
OH, lovely world, good-bye! For woe, | |
| I must be gone, my heart is ill. | |
| But, dearest world, before I go, | |
| My life’s last thanks, oh, take thou still. | |
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| It seems, at first I was not there, | 5 |
| I was not at the very start. | |
| Yet round me waved the light and air, | |
| When once a prison broke apart. | |
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| Oh, light and air, you long stayed true, | |
| Until this twilight sank to-day, | 10 |
| And you were daily fair and new, | |
| And I was young and I was gay. | |
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| My blood was warm, my blood would boil, | |
| My breast would rise in joyful song, | |
| And there was joy in busy toil: | 15 |
| The longest day was not too long. | |
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| I wove a house of many a blade | |
| And hung it on the steep cliff-side. | |
| One early morn my flight I made | |
| Away into the world so wide. | 20 |
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| Then came the unforgotten day | |
| When once, on such a flight in spring, | |
| In answer to my fairest lay, | |
| I first heard love’s sweet echoing. | |
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| It seemed a game and was an aim | 25 |
| And helped our lives at last unfold. | |
| And even care that often came | |
| Would give us but a stronger hold. | |
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| Ah, why does all the past seem blest, | |
| E’en what in pain I scarce could brook? | 30 |
| The serpent crept into our nest! | |
| The falcon wild my life-mate took! | |
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| When I had reared with pain and care | |
| My youthful brood, soon came the day | |
| When all had left, away to fare | 35 |
| And their own courage to essay. | |
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| And once more lonely was my flight, | |
| And many a gloomy night passed by | |
| When all my heart would beat in fright, | |
| For murder tracked me on the sly. | 40 |
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| That life was easy, who can say? | |
| ’Twas after all but full of woe! | |
| Now that I feel it pass away, | |
| It showers over me a glow. | |
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| Oh, mighty world! I am so small | 45 |
| And now must go—my heart is ill— | |
| And now I shall not be at all— | |
| Oh, lovely world—thanks—thank you, still— | |
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