Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 521

If o'er my soul the tone familiar, stealing,

Drew me from harrowing thought's bewild'ring maze,

Touching the ling'ring chords of childlike feeling,

With the sweet harmonies of happier days:

So curse I all, around the soul that windeth

Its magic and alluring spell,

And with delusive flattery bindeth

Its victim to this dreary cell!

Curs'd before all things be the high opinion

Wherewith the spirit girds itself around!

Of shows delusive curs'd be the dominion,

Within whose mocking sphere our sense is bound!

Accurs'd of dreams the treacherous wiles,

The cheat of glory, deathless fame!

Accurs'd what each as property beguiles,

Wife, child, slave, plough, whate'er its name!

Accurs'd be mammon, when with treasure

He doth to daring deeds incite:

Or when to steep the soul in pleasure,

He spreads the couch of soft delight!

Curs'd be the grape's balsamic juice!

Accurs'd love's dream, of joys the first!

Accurs'd be hope! accurs'd be faith!

And more than all, be patience curs'd!

CHORUS OF SPIRITS (invisible)

Woe! woe!

Thou hast destroy'd

The beautiful world

With violent blow;

'Tis shiver'd! 'tis shatter'd!

The fragments abroad by a demigod scatter'd!

Now we sweep

The wrecks into nothingness!

Fondly we weep

The beauty that's gone!

Thou, 'mongst the sons of earth,

Lofty and mighty one,

Build it once more!

In thine own bosom the lost world restore!

Now with unclouded sense

Enter a new career;

Songs shall salute thine ear,

Ne'er heard before!