Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 988

Inclosure between the City-wall and the Gate. (In the niche of the wall a devotional image of the Mater dolorosa, with flower-pots before it.)

MARGARET (putting fresh flowers in the pots)

Ah, rich in sorrow, thou,

Stoop thy maternal brow,

And mark with pitying eye my misery!

The sword in thy pierced heart,

Thou dost with bitter smart

Gaze upwards on thy Son's death agony.

To the dear God on high

Ascends thy piteous sigh,

Pleading for his and thy sore misery.

Ah, who can know

The torturing woe,

The pangs that rack me to the bone?

How my poor heart, without relief,

Trembles and throbs, its yearning grief

Thou knowest, thou alone!

Ah, wheresoe'er I go,

With woe, with woe, with woe,

My anguish'd breast is aching!

When all alone I creep,

I weep, I weep, I weep,

Alas! my heart is breaking!

The flower-pots at my window

Were wet with tears of mine,

The while I pluck'd these blossoms

At dawn to deck thy shrine!

When early in my chamber

Shone bright the rising morn,

I sat there on my pallet,

My heart with anguish torn.

Help! from disgrace and death deliver me!

Ah! rich in sorrow, thou,

Stoop thy maternal brow,

And mark with pitying eye my misery!