S

“Holy night, holy night!
Peace on high held in the stars' yoke!
All—that ever the Light had broke,
Is rejoined now,
Both flesh and brow
Bleed sweetly in the red-dusk!

Bjelbog's Spear, Bjelbog's Spear
Sinks to the heart of the drunk earth,
Which—with a sign of holy mirth
A lone rose-bloom
Within the womb
Of the darkest desire dips.

Spotless bride, spotless bride!
Your sweet contrition—cover up,
When the full-filled wedding cup
Yet overflows.
Thus also goes
Into the fierce Night the Day!”
― Clemens Brentano

“In vain you beg, in vain you ache,
in vain you’ve opened your wrecked heart wide.
Perhaps in heaven the rainclouds quake
because we both have cried?

This pain of ours is without a wing.
The fainthearted cry can never fly.
Weep and pray! What god is coming
by the path of the stars up high?

Abandon yourself to the dust
and upon it fall in surrender.
Our great mother is ever so just
to every sinner who kisses her.

Within a Hell of godless emptiness
submit yourself ever more to sleep’s spell.
All is a dream, all is nothingness:
the flower of the world is the asphodel.

(Trans. Michael Shindler)”
― Gabriele D'Annunzio

“Some momentary touches of my fire
Have warmed the barren ages with a beam:
There is no peak beyond my swift desire,
There is no beauty deeper than my dream.”
― Edwin Markham, Lincoln & other poems

“O little sliver of moon waning
that shines on waves desolately reigning,
O little sliver of silver, what mass of dreams
swells here towards your gentle glow!

Fleeting breaths of foliage,
sighs of flowers from the woods
exhale to the sea: no song, no cry,
no sound pierces the vast silence.

Oppressed by love, by pleasure,
the world of the living falls asleep…
O little sliver waning, what mass of dreams
swells here towards your gentle glow!

(Trans. Michael Shindler)”
― Gabriele D'Annunzio