The Cord Grass Festival

See far away, what a glad festival The golden grasses on the meadow weave! A festival thrice-fragrant with blond flowers! With the sweet sunrise sweetly wakening, I also wish to join the festival And, like a treasure reaper, to embrace Masses of flowers blond and fresh with dew, And then to squander all my flower treasure At my love's feet, for my heart's ruling queen.

But the gold-spangled meadow spreads too deep; And, just as mourning for some dead deprives A life rejoicing with its twenty years Of its light raiments of a lily-white, So is my swift and merry way cut short By a bad way that lies between, without An end, beset with brambles and with marshes!

The thorny plants tear like an enemy's claws; And like bird-lime the bad plain's mire ensnares My feet among the brambles and the marshes, Where, in the parching sun's enflaming shafts, The brine, like silver lightning, strikes my eyes!

Where is the coolness of a breath? Where is The covering shadow of a leafy tree? I faint! My frame is bent! My way is lost! I droop exhausted on the briny earth, And in my lethargy I feel the thorns Upon my brow; the bitter brine upon My lips; the sultriness of the south wind Upon my hands; the kisses of the marsh Upon my feet; the rushes' fondling on My breast; and the hard fate and impotence Of this bare world within me. Where art thou, My love? See far, in depths of purple sunsets Gorgeously painted, the glad festival That golden grasses on the meadow weave, The festival thrice-fragrant with blond flowers, Sees me, and calls me still, and waits for me!