By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine, At the foot of the mount in the pleasant grove’s confine, I have found a home in its mantle of green, In the shady woods, that peace and calmness divine, Rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow keen. —Translated by Charles Derbyshire. TO THE FLOWERS OF HEIDELBERG Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers. Sown by the traveler on his way; And there, beneath its azure sky, Where all of my affections lie; There from the weary pilgrim say, What faith is his in that land of ours! Go there and tell how when the dawn, Her early light diffusing, Your petals first flung open wide; His steps beside chill Neckar drawn, You see him silent by your side, Upon its Spring perennial musing. Saw how when morning’s light, All your fragrance stealing, Whispers to you as in mirth Playful songs of love’s delight, He, too, murmurs his love’s feeling In the tongue he learned at birth. That when the sun on Koenigstuhl’s height Pours out its golden flood, And with its slowly warming light Gives life to vale and grove and wood, He greets that sun, here only upraising, Which in his native land is at its zenith blazing. And tell there of that day he stood, Near to a ruin’d castle gray, By Neckar’s banks, or shady wood, And pluck’d you from beside the way; Tell, too, the tale to you addressed, And how with tender care, Your bending leaves he press’d ’Twixt pages of some volume rare. Bear then, O flowers, love’s message bear; My love to all the lov’d ones there, Peace to my country—fruitful land— Faith whereon its sons may stand, And virtue for its daughters’ care; All those belovéd creatures greet, That still around home’s altar meet. And when you come unto its shore, This kiss I now on you bestow, Fling where the winged breezes blow; That borne on them it may hover o’er All that I love, esteem, and adore. But though, O flowers, you come unto that land, And still perchance your colors hold; So far from this heroic strand, Whose soil first bade your life unfold, Still here your fragrance will expand; Your soul that never quits the earth Whose light smiled on you at your birth. —Translated by Charles Derbyshire. YOU ASK ME FOR VERSES You bid me now to strike the lyre, That mute and torn so long has lain: And yet I cannot wake the strain, Nor will the Muse one note inspire! Coldly it shakes in accents dire, As if my soul itself to wring, And when its sound seems but to fling A jest at its own low lament; So in sad isolation pent, My soul can neither feel nor sing.