Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/99

"Oh, hear, great God! with pity hear!
My child, thy prayer to Heaven address;
God does all well; 'tis ours to bear;
God gives, but God relieves distress."
"All trust in Heaven is weak and frail;
God ill, not well, by me has done;
I pray'd, while prayers could yet avail;
Nor prayers are vain, for Wilhelm's gone."

"Oh, ever in affliction's hour
The Father hears his children's cry;
His blessed sacraments shall pour
True comfort o'er thy misery."
"Oh, mother, pangs like mine that burn,
What sacrament can e'er allay?
What sacrament can bid return
Life's spirit to the mouldering clay?"

"But if, my child, in distant lands,
Unmindful of his plighted vows,
Thy false one courts another's bands,
Fresh kisses, and a newer spouse,
Why let the perjured rover go;
No blessings shall his new love bring,
And when death lays his body low,
Thy wrongs his guilty soul shall sting."

"My pangs no cure nor comfort crave;
Joy, hope, and life, alike I scorn;
My hope is death, my joy the grave,
Curs'd be the day that saw me born!
Sink, sink, detested vital flame,
Sink in the starless night of death:
Not God's, but Wilhelm's darling name
Shall faulter from my parting breath!"

"Judge not, great God! this erring child,
No guilt her bosom dwells within;
Her thoughts are craz'd, her words are wild;
Arm not for her the death of sin!
Oh, child; forget they mortal love,
Think of God's bliss and mercies sweet;
So shall thy soul, in realms above,
A bright eternal Bridegroom meet."

"Oh, mother! what is God's sweet bliss?
Oh, mother, mother! what is hell?
With Wilhelm there is only bliss,
And without Wilhelm only Hell!