Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888.
LunaErik Johan Stagnelius (17931823)
Translated by Edmund Gosse
D
With pale pink cheek fresh from her watery caves
Slow rose the Moon out of the midnight waves;
Like Venus out of ocean born again,
Olympian blazed she on the dark blue main;
“So shall, ye Gods!” hark how my weak hope raves!
“My happy star ascend the sea that laves
Its shores with grief, and silence all my pain!”
With that there sighed a wandering midnight breeze,
High up among the topmost tufted trees,
And o’er the moon’s face blew a veil of cloud;
And in the breeze my genius spake, and said,
“While thy heart stirs, thy glimmering hope has fled,
And like the moon lies muffled in a shroud.”