Then peace again, then rustling wings again,
And in my heart I feel
That all creation slumbers in God's hand,
And I, content, seek slumber;
For everywhere my home is, everywhere.
Dew glimmers on the grass,
I see earth's breath in whitish haze uprising
Skywards, as morn's foreboding:
The birch-trunk's whiteness and the brown gnarled oak
Hold converse in the half-light of the dawn,
And e'en the pebble feels
Mystical kinship with the wave that chafes it.
A hundred dreams are scattered
And on my faded brow
Pinions are beating,
Like great brown night-moths,
Upon the wrinkled trunk
That girds some hollow elm, whence they have flown.
O night, fling after them
Thy shadow-net, that swiftly
Over the tree-tops, over mountain-ridges,
E'en as the conquering Roland in light armour
Morning may rise!
Hear in the brake the warbler!
O, I exult, for someone shares my gladness:
Haply she feeds her young,
E'en as I feed my soul with ponderings.
O sing, O sing: my dreams and yearnings changed
To music will the easier reach heaven,
The easier haunt earth.
And after centuries perform my will there,
Bearing in thought a blessing to the world,
And greeting to mankind.
“On the Journey to Eldorado” (1882).
