DESCENDING THE RIVER
Well, let these men continue to sleep!
May the boat not yet arrive at its port! Thus shall my misery be made to hear my last word, or I at least have said it.
Emerging from a night’s sleep, I am awakened in flames.
So much beauty compels my laughter. What splendor, what brilliance! What a wealth of inextinguishable color! It is Aurora. Oh God, how much refreshment this blue has for me! How tender the green is, how cool; and, looking toward the furthest heaven, what peace to see it still so dark that the stars twinkle there!
But how well you know, my friend, where to turn and what awaits you, if, on lifting your eyes, you need not blush to behold this heavenly brightness! Oh may it indeed be this color which I am given to contemplate! Not red, and not the color of the sun, it is the fusing of blood in gold. It is life consummated in victory. It is the perpetual renewal of youth in eternity.
The thought that this is only the day arising does not diminish my exaltation in the least; but the thing that embarrasses me like a lover, that makes me tremble through my whole body, is the intention hidden in such glory. It is my admission to it, it is my progress toward meeting with this joy.
Drink, oh my heart, of these inexhaustible delights!
What do you fear? Do you not see how the current, accelerating the movement of our boat, leads us on? Why doubt that we shall arrive, and that endless day will respond to the brightness of such a promise? I foresee that the sun will rise, and that I must prepare to sustain its power. Oh light, drown all transitory things in the depth of thy abyss!
Let noon come, and it will be vouch-safed me to meditate, Summer, upon thy reign, and to include the whole day in my perfected joy, as I sit amid the peace of all the earth in the harvest solitudes.