(FROM THE GERMAN)
1
In the valley with moonlight streaming, In depths of the forest free, An old and forgotten dreaming Is weaving its spell round me.
2
Dim columns, ghostlike and lonely, Range darkly on yonder mound, To the bat and the owlet only Familiar trysting ground.
3
From the rocks come memories ringing, The west wind whispers and calls, And towers of gold are springing From ruin and crumbling walls.
4
In a haze, through cloudland blowing, Is wafted the old love—dead; She draws me towards her, glowing With radiance of youth that’s fled.
5
Like bliss from a far past carried Comes softly her whispered vow; And what in the years lay buried Stands living before me now.
6
Then, soft as it came, the vision Is gone; from the forest space, Where we kissed in the woods Elysian Has faded her vanished face.
7
The golden dreamland of wonder Has fled on the passing wind, The desolate walls up yonder Are all that remain behind.
8
And, under the branches sweeping, I walk in the dawn alone, For day on the hills is creeping And the glory of dreams has flown.
❦