Ah! who shall number all my tears and sighs?
Have I so long wept through these weary years?
Was such great bitterness in heart and eyes,
That all this grate is rusty with my tears?
Where falls the tear it penetrates the stone,
As in a good man’s heart ’twere sinking down.
A fire eternal burns in Swentorog’s halls;7
Its pious priests for ever feed the fire:
From Mendog’s hill a fount eternal falls;
The snows and storm-clouds swell it ever higher.
None feed the torrent of my sighs and tears,
Yet pain for ever heart and eyeballs sears.
A father’s care, a mother’s tender love,
And a rich castle and a joyous land,
Days without longing, nights no dream might move
Peace like a tranquil angel aye did stand
Near me, abroad, at home, by day and night,
Guarding me close, though viewless to the sight.
Three lovely daughters from one mother born,
And I the first demanded as a bride;
Happy in youth, happy in joys to be,
Who told me there were other joys beside?
O lovely youth! why didst thou tell me more
Than e’er in Litwa any knew before?
Of the great God, of angels bright as day,
Of stone-built cities where religion rests,
Where in rich churches all the people pray,
Where princely lords obey their maidens’ hests;
Like to our warriors great in warlike pains,
Tender in love as are our shepherd swains.
Where man, from covering of clay set free,
A winged soul, flies through a joyful heaven.
I could believe it, for in listening thee
I had a foretaste of those wonders even.
Ah! since that time, in good and evil plight,
I dream of thee and those fair heavens bright.
The cross upon thy breast rejoiced mine eyes;
The sign of future bliss therein I read.
Alas! when from the cross the thunder flies,
All things around are silenced, perished.
Nought I regret, though bitter tears I pour;
Thou tookest all from me, but hope leftst o’er.
“Hope!” the low echoes from the shore replied,
The valleys and the forest Konrad woke,
And laughing wildly, answered, “Where am I?
To hear in this place—hope? Wherefore this song?
I do recall thy vanished happiness.
Three lovely daughters from one mother born,
And thou the first demanded as a bride.
Woe unto you, fair flowers! woe to you!
A fearful viper crept into the garden,
And where the reptile’s livid breast has touched
The grass is withered and the roses fade,
And yellow as the reptile’s bosom grow.
Fly from the present in thought; recall the days
Which thou hadst spent in joyousness without—
Thou’rt silent! Raise thy voice again and curse;
Let not the dreadful tear which pierces stones
Perish in vain. My helmet I’ll remove.
Here let it fall; I am prepared to suffer;
Would learn betimes what waiteth me in hell.