Wanderer's
Storm-Song (1772)
Spirit, he whom you do not forsake,
Rain does not, nor tempest,
Breathe across his heart the horrors.
Spirit, he whom you do not forsake,
Will to the raincloud,
Will to the hailstorm
Sing out
Like the lark,
You lark aloft there.
Spirit, not forsaking him,
Above the mud path you lift him,
With wings of fire
He will walk
As on feet of flowers
Over Deucalion's flood ooze,
Killing Python, light, large,
A Pythian Apollo.
Spirit, he whom you do not forsake,
Woollen wings you'll spread beneath him
When he sleeps on rock,
With guardian pinions deck him
In the midnight bosk.
Spirit, not forsaking him,
Him you will cloak
Warm in the snow-whirl;
To warmth the Muses come,
Come the Graces.
Float round me, Muses
And you Graces!
Here is water, here is earth,
And the son of earth and water
Over whom I walk,
Godlike.
You are pure, like water's heart,
You are pure, like earth's marrow,
Round me you float and I
Float over water, over earth,
Godlike.
Shall he return,
The small dark fiery farmer?
Shall he return, in expectation
Only of your gifts, Father Bromius?
And bright shining fire's warmth
around?
He return, in good heart?
And I, whom you consort with,
Muses and Graces all,
I whom all expects that you,
Muses and Graces,
All the garlanding bliss,
The glory you have ringed this earth
with,
Should I return despondent?
Father Bromius!
You the Spirit are,
Spirit of the Century,
Are what heart's glow
Was to Pindar,
What to the world
Phoebus Apollo is.
Ow! Ow! Inner warmth,
Soulwarmth,
Midpoint!
Glow toward
Phoebus Apollo;
Else coldly will
His princely gaze
Pass over you,
Panged with envy
Dwell upon the cedar's power,
Which to be green
Waits not for him.
My song, why does it name you last,
You from whom it began,
You in whom it ends,
You from whom it streams,
Jupiter Pluvius?
You, you my song pours forth,
And this Castalian spring
-Runs like a trickle,
Trickles, for idlers,
Mortally fortunate men,
A tributary brook, while you
Hold and shelter me,
Jupiter Pluvius.
Not by the elm,
Him you visited not,
A pair of doves
Perched on his delicate arm,
Garlanded with friendly rose,
Titillating and flower-fortunate
Anacreon,
God who breathes the storm out.
Not among the poplars,
On the coast of Sybaris,
On the sunlit brow
Of the mountain, not him
Did you hold,
Flower-singing,
Honey-babbling,
Amiably beckoning
Theocritus.
When the wheels rattled,
Wheel by wheel, fast to the finish,
High flew
The whipcracks
Of the lads who glowed for a win,
And dust churned like hail
Tumbling down
Into the dale from the mountain,
Did your soul glow, Pindar,
Against perils
Courage. – Glow, did it?
Poor heart,
There on the hill,
Heavenly power,
Glow enough only,
There my cabin,
To wade my way there!