Wanderer's Storm Song
He whom you do not forsake, Spirit,
not the rain, nor the storm
shall breath shivers o're his heart.
Spirit, he whom you do not forsake
shall to the raincloud,
shall to the hailstorm
sing against,
like the lark,
you, lark, there.
That one you do not forsake, Spirit,
you shall lift above the muddied path
with wings of fire.
He will walk
as with feet of flowers
over Deucalion's devouring flood,
slaying Python, weightless, enormous,
A Pythian Apollo.
That one you do not forsake, Spirit,
you shall wollen wings spread beneath.
When he sleeps on the high cliffs,
you shall wrap him in the guarded pinions
of midnight's thicket.
He whom you do not forsake, Spirit,
you shall in snow flurries
envelope warmly;
To warmth the Muses come,
to warmth come the Graces.
Float round me, Muses,
Graces.
This is water, this the Earth,
and the son of water and the Earth,
over which I walk,
as though a God.
You are pure, like the heart of water,
you are pure, like the pulp of Earth,
you float round me, and I float
over water, over Earth,
as though a God.
Should he return,
the small, blackened, fiery farmer?
Should he return expecting
only your gifts, Father Bromius?
And your bright fire's warmth all around?
The heroic return?
And I, with whom you consort,
Muses and Graces all,
who expect all, that you,
Muses and Graces,
wreathing bliss,
ringing glory around life,
should I return despondent?
Father Bromius!
You are the spirit,
the spirit of the century,
are what the heart’s glow
was to Pindar,
what to the world
Phoebus Apollo is.
Pain! Oh pain! Innermost warmth!
Soul-warmth,
middle-point!
Glow toward
Phoebus Apollo;
Lest his princely gaze
glide coldly over you,
envy stricken,
to linger on the cedar's art,
that it greens
waiting not for him.
Why does my song name you last?
You from whom it began,
you in whom it ends,
you from whom it pours,
Jupiter Pluvius!
You, from you my song pours forth,
and this Castalian spring
runs like a stream,
a stream for idle wanderer’s,
those mortally blessed,
away from you,
while you shelter me,
Jupiter Pluvius.
Not by the elm tree
have you visited him,
with the dove pair
on his tender arm,
with the friendly rose wreathed,
dallying him with blesséd flowers,
Anacreon,
storm breathing Deity.
Not in the poppy forests
of the Sybaris beach,
not on the sun-glanced brow
of the mountains,
you do not hold him,
the flower-singing,
honey-babbling,
friendly calling,
Theocritus.
When the spokes rattled,
wheel over wheel quick to the finish,
high flew
victory through
the whipcrack of the
annealed youth.
And dust churned
like pebbles storming
to the valley from the mountain.
Did your soul glow against peril, Pindar?
Courage – did it glow?
Poor heart!
There on the mountain,
Heavenly maker,
only so little glow
there, within my cabin,
to guide me home.
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