1.
With the mild sound of clear swift waves the Danube's arms of foam
Circle a verdant isle which Peace has made her chosen home;
Where the fond poet might repair from weariness and strife,
And in the sunshine of sweet song consume his happy life.
Here evermore the smiling Spring goes scattering odorous flowers,
And nightingales and turtle-doves in depth of myrtle bowers,
Turn disappointment into hope, turn sadness to delight,
With magic of their fond laments, which cease not day nor night.
2.
Here am I placed, or sooth to say, alone, 'neath foreign skies
Forced in arrest, and easy 'tis in such a paradise
To force a meditative man, whose own desires would doom
Himself with pleasure to a world all redolence and bloom.
One thought alone distresses me, if I whilst banished sink
'Midst such misfortunes to the grave, lest haply they should think
It was my complicated ills that caused my death, when I
Know well that if I die 'twill be because I wish to die.
3.
My person's in the power and hands of him who can require,
And at his sovereign pleasure do what else he may desire,
But he shall ne'er have power to force my discontents to stay,
Whilst nothing more of me than this is subject to his sway.
When now the' inevitable doom shall come, my fatal hour,
And find me in the self-same place, the prisoner of his power,
Another thing more keen than death it is will deal the blow,
As whosoever has endured the like too well must know.
4.
Idle it were at greater length on such a theme to speak,
Since my necessity is strong, and hopeless all I seek,
Since in the course of one short hour was all this ruin sent,
Since upon that the tears and toils of my whole life were spent.
And at the finish of a course like this, shall they presume
To scare me? let them know that now I cannot face my doom
But without dread, that Fortune when she caused to disappear
In one day all my happiness, grudged ev'n to leave me fear.
5.
River divine, rich Danube! thou the bountiful and strong,
That through fierce nations roll'st thy waves rejoicingly along,
Since only but by rushing through thy drowning billows deep,
These scrolls can hence escape to tell the noble words I weep,
If wrecked in undeciphered loss on some far foreign land,
They should by any chance be found upon thy desert sand,
Since they upon thy willowed shore must drift, where'er they err,
Their relics let the kind blue waves with murmured hymns inter.
6.
Ode of my melancholy hours! last infant of my lyre!
Although in booming waves it be thy fortune to expire,
Grieve not, since I, howe'er myself from holy rites debarred,
Have seen to all that touches thee with catholic regard.
Less, less had been thy life if thou hadst been but ranked among
Those without record that have risen and died upon my tongue;
Whose utter want of sympathy and haughtiness austere
Has been the cause of this, from me thou very soon shalt hear!