Part 2 / Act 4 — ON A CATARACT
Reading edition
FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE [AFTER STOLBERG'S UNSTERBLICHER JÜNGLING]
STROPHE
Unperishing youth! Thou leapest from forth The cell of thy hidden nativity; Never mortal saw The cradle of the strong one; Never mortal heard The gathering of his voices; The deep-murmur'd charm of the son of the rock, That is lisp'd evermore at his slumberless fountain. There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing; It embosoms the roses of dawn, It entangles the shafts of the noon, And into the bed of its stillness The moonshine sinks down as in slumber, That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven May be born in a holy twilight!
ANTISTROPHE
The wild goat in awe Looks up and beholds Above thee the cliff inaccessible;— Thou at once full-born Madd'nest in thy joyance, Whirlest, shatter'st, splitt'st, Life invulnerable.
?1799.