HAT I dream, you ask? That yesterday
We had died, we two. In fair array —
Clad in white, our hair with flowers wound,
In our gondola we're seaward bound;
Bells from yonder campanile peal,
But the water gurgles round the keel.
Drowns the distant toll that's gently failing.
Onward, onward to the sea we're sailing.
Where the ships with masts that tower high,
Sombre shadows, rest against the sky.
Where on fishing-boats there gleam the moist
Deep-stained red and yellow sails they hoist.
Where the roaring mighty waves are swelling,
Where the sailors lurid tales are telling.
Through a gate of bluest water, deeply
Downward now our boat is gliding steeply.
In the depths we find a wid'ning range
Filled with many trees of coral strange.
Where in lustrous shells that hidden gleam
Pale gigantic pearls with beauty beam.
Silvery fishes pass us, glist'ning, shy.
Leaving tinted trails as they flit by,
In whose furrows other fish instead
Gleam with slender tails of golden red.
At the bottom, fathoms deep, we dream;
As if bells were calling it will seem.
Now and then, as if a wind that fanned
- ↑ Translator: Margarete Münsterberg.
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