At Evening

DEAR, I loved you when Armenia’s roses Budded forth upon your forehead pale— On the day those suns, your eyes, were hidden Bashfully behind their lashes’ veil! Freely the cool breeze your path may visit, And the stars gaze on you without fear. Only I, alone amid the shadows, Tremble, hardly daring to draw near. Like a breeze to-day you flee before me; On my lyre your shade alone you throw; Like a comet from afar coquetting, While upon the air your gold locks flow. Then the graveyard’s frozen trees all whisper With the dead, beneath a cold wind’s breath; Then my sad heart’s chords give back an echo To their voice, an echo calling death. But the light sound of your footstep echoes Ever and forever in mine ears, And my soul descends, with sobs and mourning, Into an abyss of woe and tears! Lights and sounds have died; no leaf now rustles; Mute our hearts—no breath of word or kiss! Kisses now and murmurs all are buried In the starry heavens’ deep abyss. Let the zephyr breathe upon its blossoms, Let the stars look down upon the sea; Let me too grow pale, if but once only, When your ardent glance is cast on me! When the crescent moon to the horizon Blushing sinks on yonder mountain heights, Then you vanish—then you walk no longer There before the stars, the wind, the lights. Like a breeze that stirs the leaves and shakes them, So you stirred my heart’s depths, full of fire; And you drew from out my throbbing bosom Those keen cords of flame that make a lyre. You walk forth when day is done, my darling, When the starry night is cool and sweet. Do you know how with your glance of magic You consume my heart beneath your feet?