Why did you grant us these premonitions,
Future visions we can never trust,
Blessings or—we cannot know—illusions:
Loves and joys of Earth’s uncertain dust?
Fate, why did you give us these deep feelings,
That discern the other’s secret heart,
In that wanton chaos, those revealings
Where our true bond takes its central part?
Ah, so many thousands know no better
Than to drift unpurposed to and fro
Numb to their own hearts, or, fleeing, scatter
Hopelessly in unprovided woe,
And rejoice when transient pleasure hovers
Dawning upon their unenlightenedness;
Only to this pair of wretched lovers
Is denied our mutual happiness:
The sweet dream of loving without knowing,
Seeing the other as she’s never been,
Finding dream-joy always overflowing,
Whirled through perilous figments unforeseen.
Happy he whose dream is all his passion!—
Who believes his visions, though in vain!
If our glances, meetings, give permission,
Ah, the more our future-dreams ordain.
Say, what fate is even now preparing,
Say, how first it bound us, life to life?
In some former age that we were sharing,
You were my own sister, or my wife!
*
You discerned each fraction of my being,
Heard the music of its purest string,
Read me with your piercing art of seeing,
One for mortal eyes no easy thing;
In hot blood you trickled moderation,
Ruled the helter-skelter of the chase;
In the angel arms of consolation
Nursed the wounded breast that sought your grace;
You with weightless magic bonds restrained him,
Sometimes tricked him gently from his aim;
What delight can match those hours that chained him,
Prostrate at your feet, grateful and tame?
Now he feels his heart on yours is swelling,
As it once felt happy in your eyes;
All his senses light up with the feeling,
But his mad blood, calmed, forgets to rise.
Most of all a memory drifts stealing
Just around the strange uncertain heart;
Ancient truth eternally indwelling,
But renewed, is felt as grievous smart.
Half-ensouled we seem in our reflections,
Darkling seems the light of the daystar;
Happy, though, that fate with its afflictions
Will not make us other than we are.
1776