C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Sad Spring
By Friedrich Rückert (17881866)
“S
Then went I forth to seek where he might be:
I found the buds on every bush and tree,
But nowhere could I find my darling, Spring.
Birds sang, the bees they hummed, but everything
They sang or hummed was sad as sad could be;
Rills gushed, but all their waves were tears to me;
Suns laughed,—no joy to me their looks could bring.
Nor of my darling could I find a trace,
Till with my pilgrim staff I took my way
To a well-known but long-neglected place,
And there I found him, Spring: near where she lay,
He sate, a beauteous boy, with tearful face,
Like one who weeps above a mother’s clay.