At noontide hour, when first,
Into the mountains Summer treads,
Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary,
Then too he speaks,
Yet we can only see his speech.
His breath is panting, like the sick man's breath
On fevered couch.
The glacier and the fir tree and the spring
Answer his call
--Yet we their answer only see.
For faster from the rock leaps down
The torrent stream, as though to greet,
And stands, like a white column trembling,
All yearning there.
And darker yet and truer looks the fir-tree
Than e'er before.
And 'twixt the ice-mass and the cold grey stone
A sudden light breaks forth--
Such light I once beheld, and marked the sign.
Even the dead man's eye
Surely once more grows light,
When, sorrowful, his child
Gives him embrace and kiss:
Surely once more the flame of light
Wells out, and glowing into life
The dead eye speaks: "My child!
Ah child, you know I love you true!"
So all things glow and speak--the glacier speaks,
The brook, the fir,
Speak with their glance the selfsame words:
We love you true,
Ah, child, you know we love you, love you true!
And he,
Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary,
Woe-worn, gives kisses
More ardent ever,
And will not go:
But like to veils he blows his words
From out his lips,
His cruel words:
"My greeting's parting,
My coming going,
In youth I die."
All round they hearken
And scarcely breathe
(No songster sings),
And shuddering run
Like gleaming ray
Over the mountain;
All round they ponder,--
Nor speak--
Twas at the noon,
At noontide hour, when first
Into the mountains Summer treads,
Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary.