[Kätzchen]

Sad Madrigal


i

What do you care if you are wise?
Be beautiful and Sad! For tears
Add an enchantment to the eyes
Just as a river mirrors the skies;
A storm revives the flowers.

I love you most when happiness
Deserts your countenance O’er cast;
When terrors do your heart oppress;
When, overheard, and ominous,
There spreads the dark cloud of the past.

I love you when your eyes let fall
A rain of tears as warm as blood;
When, though my hands caress and lull’;
Your pain is irresistible,
Like moaning at infinitude.

I love, divine felicity!
Anthem profound and exquisite!
Your sobs, your heartfelt misery,
And think your heart shines brilliantly
With pearls shed by your eyes so bright!

ii

I know that now your heart still seems
With old uprooted passions;
Still, like a forge, it flares and flames,
And in your heart burns still, it seems,
The faint pride of damnation.

But till your dreams, beloved one,
Have been reflections of Hell,
Till in a nightmare never done,
Thinking of poison, falchion,
In love with powder, shot and steel,

And opening to all with fear,
Seeking misfortune everywhere,
And stricken when the hour draws near,
You’ve been the helpless prisoner
Of irresistible despair:

You won’t be able helot queen
Who loves me only quivering,
In the long horrid night obscene
To tell me, overcome with pain:
‘I am your equal, o my King!’



The Spiritual Dawn

When the white and rosy dawn rakes appears
With the Ideal that ever gnaws away
By some strange and avenging agency
Within the sleeping brute an angel stirs.

The man afflicted who dreams on in pain
See the remote and spiritual skies
Open alluring, deep as the abyss.
So, lovely goddess, bright and heaven born,
Upon the smoky debris of excess
Your memory more charming, roseate, bright,
Hovers without end in my eager sight.

The sunlight does the candlelight surpass;
So, ever conquering, your benison,
Resplendent soul, is like the deathless sun!


The Cat

Come, Lovely cat, my heart is amorous;
Draw in your claws for me.
And let me gaze into your splendid eyes,
Flecked with Chalcedony.

When, gently, leisurely, my hands caress
Your head, your tensile back,
And grow intoxicated with the bliss,
The Aphrodisiac,

I see my mistress in my mind. Her glance,
Like yours, endearing beast,
Cold, searching, cuts and shivers like a lance,

Aromas sweet invest –
A subtle air, a perilous perfume –
Her body cinnamon.