ASPIRATION

Joyless seeing me to be

Mother Nature asked of me:

        «What desirest thou?

Whence comes this thy misery?

Whence the sadness on thy brow?

        Tell me what thy wish is.»

- «To give it thou art powerless.

Something lovelier than love,

Bluer than the sky above,

Truer than the truth we have

Something better than the grave,

Aught that in the soul has root,

Something that no mistress' kiss

Nor mother's love can substitute.

But I, dreaming, do pollute

With my dream its object's day.»

In the silence absolute

Of my soul I hear it say:

´'Love can make me but to weep,

        Glory maketh me but pine.

        Give the world with my keep,

        And still nothing will be mine.'»

- «But what feelest thou in thee?»

- «Hope and misery the first,

Then despair and misery.

´Oh, it is a desire, a thirst

The limits of my soul to burst,

To spring outside my consciousness,

        I know not how nor why;

A wish with moonlight wings to fly

Past the high walls of distress.

Lifting my most daring flight

Up, far up, beyond all night,

More than eagles fly in air

Would I in that atmosphere.

«Something more near to me in space

        Than my body is. In fine

Something than myself more mine.

Something (in what words to trace

Its nature?) nearer in its bliss

To me than my own consciousness.

The Something I desire is this.

It is further than far away

And yet (its nature how to find?)

        Closer to me than my mind,

        Nearer to me than to-day.»