A Poem

And in the depths of a deep daze, the tall, stately figure passes by me...
I stare, then lower my eyes in shyness and curb my hungry eagerness!,
And feign the stillness of an ornament, as though the splendid apparition had not shaken my blood!.
And beneath my stillness is a stormy turmoil which I conceal, eyes lowered, seeming placid...
And beneath my stillness are whirlwinds of emotion, sweeping, driving...

...

And your eyes plunder my face, while my heart suffers from them what it suffers!.
All existence is blotted out in my eyes, and all mankind is blotted out in my eyes...
Not even the glance of the eagle, O my enchantment, gazing down from the high summits,
Casting upon its mate a look fierce in its kindling, haughty...
Is more splendid than you—and your eyes upon me are a blaze that flares and a magic that steals through me!...

...

And you pass on, and I pass on with the passersby... and between us nothing but the confiding of glances...
And the ghost of a smile upon your lips... and a glow of passion kindled in my depths.
Night had come down, sweet in its mystery, beguiling in its visions, a genius in its images,
And the green vineyards billowed with the wind, shimmering in the light of the moon,
And existence overflowed with feeling and with poetry, and even the very stone melted with rapture!.

...

Ask the road how often I have come, after the parting, dragging my steps in the sad sunset,
And around me, from the bygone memories, phantoms stirring the flame of longing.
I fear the nights will charge upon them and bury them beneath the rubble of the years,
So my heart spreads the two wings of its love over them, and bends over them as the miser bends;
And you, in the depths of my soul, are a prayer—my faithful soul tells its praises in your name!

...

You have gone? Whither?! Will you not return to my yearning soul, to my estranged heart?!
Since you left, my desolater, I have been alone upon the road, the barren road of the vineyards,
Walking toward no goal at all... my palm upon the dyed wound of my heart,
And in my eyes sorrowing clouds, and upon my brow a mournful gloom,
And your figure stands present in my mind, stirring the longing and kindling the flame...

...

Whither? Your mercy, O "son of the deserts"—cool the thirst of the love-sick heart...
For in the thirsting sands nothing ever afflicted you like this insistent, stubborn burning.
Whither?.. Oh, you phantom that came and embraced my soul in a happy dream...
And oh, you glow of mirage that glittered in the wasteland of my life for my vagrant heart...
Your mercy—return! How shall I greet life while you are there, far... far away..!