***
Born at the turn of the times
In our eyes still the decline
Of old worlds that fade
Our lips furled for a new salute,
With a double ache our hearts pine
For bygone dreams that we have lost,
For the new ones whose blooms await —
So we must roam through bitter years
A struggle always and a want;
All moves within us like a flood
When it recedes sometimes we seem to die.
***
America, who leans across the water
threat’ning the old proud masters of Europe,
our eyes, they fill themselves with dawning hope
for your so far fair face, o you, young Mother,
shining between sea mist as baptism baby behind veil.
Hear, growling is starting in the crater
of her deep eye; and through her flanks goes, seconds later
tempestuous breathing though her walk seems frail.
These old coasts wait for you to feed
us with your news: “my millions of wage-slaves
are rising up”. – Their scream oppressors keeps at bay.
Oh, that shoots like a star across the waves
brightly into our heart! We ask, take, like before, the lead
and free us, free us, USA.
***
Holland, you have troops of clouds all
fleeting,
Flown to us here from the far fields of
[heaven,
You have horizons lying soft and even
From east to west, without one instant
meeting
A line that cuts them; curves of sea and
beaches
Widely spread and to the sky extended
To where they seem as with the heavens
blended
Create the illusion of unending reaches.
The tracings of your water and your land
Awaken in us thoughts that have no limit,
And endless longing in our sense appears.
Our eyes perceive the infinite and grand,
And a touch of greatness thus informs our
spirit
And then we are at home in boundless
spheres.
***
The gentle forces will surely prevail
in the end – this I hear as an intimate whisper
in me: if it were silent all light would dim
all heat would stiffen inside.
The powers that love still encircle
it will, progressively advancing, overcome,
then the great bliss can begin
Which w’as our hearts listen intently
in all tenderness hear murmurs
As in little shells the great sea.
Love is the meaning of “life of the planets.
And people and animals. There is nothing that can interfere
‘t rise to her. This is deeper knowing:
To perfect Love everything rises with it.
