Permanence in Change (1803)

 

 

Early blossoms – could a single

Hour preserve them just as now!

But the warmer west will scatter

Petals showering from the bough.

How enjoy these leaves, that lately

I was grateful to for shade?

Soon the wind and snow are rolling

What the late Novembers fade.

 

Fruit – you'd reach a hand and have it?

Better have it then with speed.

These you see about to ripen,

Those already gone to seed.

Half a rainy day, and there's your

Pleasant valley not the same,

None could swim that very river

Twice, so quick the changes came.

 

You yourself! What all around you

Strong as stonework used to lie

–        Castles, battlements – you see them

With an ever-changing eye.

Now the lips are dim and withered

Once the kisses set aglow;

Lame the leg, that on the mountain

Left the mountain goat below.

 

Or that hand, that knew such loving

Ways, outstretching in caress,

–        Cunningly adjusted structure­ –

Now can function less and less.

All are gone; this substitution

Has your name and nothing more.

Like a wave it lifts and passes,

Back to atoms on the shore.

 

See in each beginning, ending,

Double aspects of the One;

Here, amid stampeding objects,

Be among the first to run,

Thankful to a muse whose favor

Grants you one unchanging thing:

What the heart can hold to ponder;

What the spirit shape to sing.

 

 

Translated by John Frederick Nims