Poems, translated and original

Chapter 15: THE CLOUD WHERE SUNBEAMS SOFT REPOSE.

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About This Book

A compact volume of translated and original lyric poems paired with a short tragic drama. The poems range from elegiac meditations on death, memory, and the fate of poets to vivid nature pieces about lakes, seas, and changing skies; they also include mythic and historical reflections, paraphrases of sacred texts, and shorter lyrical forms such as sonnets and songs. Recurrent concerns are remembrance versus oblivion, the consolations of landscape, poetic vocation, and the ceremonial practices surrounding burial, while the concluding tragedy adapts a Venetian incident into dramatic scenes.

THE CLOUD WHERE SUNBEAMS SOFT REPOSE.

The cloud where sunbeams soft repose,

Gilt by the changeful ray,

With tints still warm and golden, glows,

When they have passed away.

The stream that in its billowy sweep

Bursts from the mountain side,

Bears far into the calm blue deep,

Its swift and freshening tide.

Thus youthful joys our hearts can thrill,

Though life has lost its bloom;

And sorrow’s hours of darkness still

With lingering charms illume.