You call for help—’tis all in vain! What have you for your toil and pain, What have you at the last? Poor luckless hunter, are you dumb? This way the cold pall-bearers come: A beggar’s soul has passed!

A little less, a little more !— Look forth, look forth! without the door There stands a robber old. He’ll force your ev’ry lock and spring, And all your goods he’ll take and fling On Stygian waters cold.

 My Youth

Come, beneath yon verdant branches, Come, my own, with me! Come, and there my soul will open Secret doors to thee. Yonder shalt thou learn the secrets Deep within my breast, Where my love upsprings eternal; Come! with pain opprest, Yonder all the truth I’ll tell thee, Tell it thee with tears... (Ah, so long have we been parted, Years of youth, sweet years!)

See’st thou the dancers floating On a stream of sound? There alone, the soul entrancing, Happiness is found! Magic music, hark! it calls us, Ringing wild and sweet! One, two, three!—beloved, haste thee, Point thy dainty feet! Now at last I feel that living Is no foolish jest... (O sweet years of youth departed, Vanished with the rest!)

Fiddler, play a little longer! Why this hurry, say? I’m but half-way through a measure— Yet a little play! Smiling in her wreath of flowers Is my love not fair? See us in the charmed circle, Flitting light as air! Haste thee, loved one, for the music Shall be hushed anon... (O sweet years of youth departed, Whither are ye gone?)

Gracious youth of mine, so quickly Hath it come to this? Lo, where flowed the golden river, Yawns the black abyss! Where, oh where is my beloved, Where the wreath of flowers? Where, oh where the merry fiddler, Where those happy hours? Shall I never hear the echoes Of those songs again? Oh, on what hills are they ringing, O’er what sunny plain? May not I from out the distance Cast one backward glance On that fair and lost existence, Youth’s sweet dalliance? Foolish dreamer! Time hath snatched it, And, tho’ man implore, Joys that he hath reaped and garnered Bloom again no more!

 In The Wilderness

Alone in desert dreary, A bird with folded wings Beholds the waste about her, And sweetly, sweetly sings.

So heaven-sweet her singing, So clear the bird notes flow, ’Twould seem the rocks must waken, The desert vibrant grow.

Dead rocks and silent mountains Would’st waken 

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