FIRST EPISTLE
When with weary eyes the candle I blow out, my thoughts still stray,
While the clock alone is treading on old Time’s unending way.
If I draw aside the curtains, in the middle of the night,
All the room at once is flooded with the moon’s voluptuous light;
From the deep night of remembrance back again she doth recall
An eternity of sorrows and in dream we feel them all.
Moon, the world’s vault gliding over, Queen who dost o’er oceans reign,
Giving life to thoughts, thou soothest with sweet balm our endless pain;
Deserts vast and lonely glisten ’neath thy clear light, purest maid,
And the sparkling spring that’s hidden far away in forest glade!
On how many countless billows doth thy power hold its sway,
When thou glidest forth on ocean’s moving solitary way!
And what flowered shores, what cities and what palaces are shown,
Through thy magic charm transfigured, but to thee, to thee alone!
Through how many thousand windows dost thou enter still and soft,
Shining mild on brows which ponder, into eyes that look aloft!
There a king, great plans combining, round the globe a web doth twine,
While what he will do to-morrow scarce a poor man can divine…
Though their lots are cast asunder, both are doomed by fate’s great might,
Both are swayed by death’s grim genius and the ray of thy pure light;
Slaves of the same chain of passions in this same world, willy-nilly,
Be they weak, or be they mighty, be they geniuses or silly.
This one, pleased with his own image, in the mirror curls his hair,
While through space and time another searches for what’s true and fair,
He from yellow leaves will gather countless trifles, one by one,
And their transient names well scoring, this is all that he has done;
While a third, behind his counter, marks what he has bought and sold,
