I don’t believe in Heaven,

So tall there, and the violets blew so sweet.It was a dream.It kissed me in German, spoke in German(You’d scarce believeHow good it sounds) the words: I love you true!’It was a dream.

Thalatta! Thalatta!I hail thee, O Sea, thou Ancient of Days!I hail thee, O Sea, ten thousand timesWith jubilant heart,Of yore as once hailed theeThose Grecian hearts ten thousand,Homestead-desiring, calamity-mastering,World-renowned bold Grecian hearts.The billows were heaving,Were heaving and roaring,The sun shed briskly from heavenHis quivering rosy sparklets,In sudden scare the tribes of sea-birdsRose on the wing,…

My hatred too of wickedness,Utterly now, even the sense,Of my own, of other men’s distress –All that’s living in me is Death!The curtain falls, the play is done,And my dear German public’s gone,Wandering home, and yawning so,Those good folk aren’t stupid though:They’ll dine happily enough tonight,Drink, and sing, and laugh – He’s right,The noble hero…

And still we sat in the lonely hut,In silence and alone.The sea-fog grew, the screaming mewRose on the water’s swell,And silently in her gentle eyeGathered the tears and fell.I saw them stand on the lily hand,Upon my knee I sank,And, kneeling there, from her fingers fairThe precious dew I drank.And sense and power, since that…

In blankets of mist shrouded,See the silent clouds flowing.See how the fields and forestsAre bare, extinguished, down below –Winter round you and inside you,And your heart frozen so.Suddenly white flakes are fallingOver you, and crosslyYou think it’s the tree sprinklingA snow flurry across you.But it’s not a snow flurry,You soon see, with joyful dread,It’s fragrant…

Gentlest thoughts they sing me.Ring and sing, my song of spring,Through the blue sky wing theeTo the house of budding flowers,Borne by Echo fleeting.Shouldst thou chance to see a Rose—Say, I send her greeting!Die Rose duftetThe Rose is fragrant—yet if she doth knowHer sweet scent’s meaning, if the NightingaleHerself feels aught that through Man’s soul…