# The Soul Of A Century/The spirit of solitude

THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE
Hid in the mountains, in the dark still woods Where from the cloudy heights, the eagle’s screech, But barely reaches to the human ear, There leaning gainst an aged stately fir HE stands alone in meditation deep . . .
When in the noonday heat the forest sleeps, Then o’er the flowered carpet of green moss He loves to steep his quickly roaming gaze As if within the moss and sparse grown grass He seeks to find the agelong, constant laws, That gave to Nature too, its life and form. He showers pearls here upon a bloom, And here upon a gay-tinged butterfly That slumbers in the full-bloomed fernery, Struck by the arrow of the noonday sun, He paints the semblance of a gruesome skull. A golden fly he rescues from a trap Straightens a bluebell in the verdant moss That bent perhaps beneath the nimble feet Of a fleeing deer, that sped across the green. Yon silver threads of a sheer spun spider web He weaves with nimble fingers in a net That spreads from branch to branch its gossamer. But suddenly when with the evening fogs, The sun’s bright diadem no longer crowns his head, Then first begins his many-sided work. For he either lights upon the crimson skies The blazing faggots of eternal stars, Or else he locks within the flower-cups, Their scented amber, that with the break of day, They’d sweeten with their breath the morning air. And often too within the fogs grey veil He leans above the mounts, and spreads thereon The cool, dark colored spreading ivy leaves, Or else he plants into the barren rocks Evergreen flowers of the houseleek plant. And when the star bespeckled cloak of night Falls finally upon his mighty back And on his forehead the shadows of the night Are firmly clasped by the moonbeams changing light, He flies across the slum’bring Universe, Then Nature shudders when his cloak’s dark hem Touches the sleeping dale and sloping mountainside . . .
What is mere man and all the Earth to HIM? What all our petty grievances and pains? What is the starry realm, the oceans’ depths? What all the thoughts within whose dizzy whirl Man’s reason quivers like a dying spark? All this he sees through with a keen clear eye, All mysteries, all secrets are to him, An open book, outspread before his gaze. And when He turns the pages of this book Then thunder’s mighty voice rolls o’er the sky, And when a lightning crashes through the trees, Into the rocky covers of a book He chisels letters of an eternal script. World’s hungry haste is poison to his soul And only rarely he keeps company With mortal men . . . More often when disturbed By nearing footsteps, all his musing stops, And to the cloudy heights he flies on colored wings. Only at times he breaks a poet’s dream To scatter rainbow-colored beauty there Or takes the sparkle of the eye divine That slumbers in some bosom young and fair, And kindles it into a mighty flame. O blessed is he, who trusted to HIS hand His fantasie’s unbridled eagle flight. He guides it ever to abysmal heights And with a key of feelings that are true He opes the land of eternal ideals. Again at other times he reaches to the depths Where the fresh current of humanity Scatters its waves in a crystalline flight. Or else he pauses in oblivion, And with the torch of timeless changeless truth He casts true light upon the aims of man Or else seeks paths to aid man in his quest. And the bitter cup of cold ingratitude, That a poet often to the bottom drains He wreathes with garlands of unfading blooms, And sweetens with a nectar of world’s fame. Thus I beheld him in the darkened woods And in the lightning over a whispering stream He showed me his sublimely molded face.
O Master Spirit that with the breath of winds And with the scent of flowers speaks to me,
You raised me from the dust of commonplace And set for me a far-reached, daring goal Before whose scope I shudder with mere thought. You have revived my faded, drooping will And in the long-stilled strings within my heart You struck again a mighty sounding chord, And often when I madly would rejoice And pause mid tears, ’tis you instead of I That strikes against the strings with starry wings. You taught me my lone journey’s final goal You roused me when through inactivity In futile grief I wasted treasured days. ’twas you who showed me that the very song That quivers in a nightingale’s young throat Is as a sister to my wandering chant, And that my soul, that radiant bright spark, Is but a part of Nature and its plans, Nature that in an ever changing form Is a reflection of God’s eternal cheeks! You taught me that the waters, virgin woods, The hillsides in their jeweled autumn garb The heavens shield ablaze with gleaming stars Though clear or stormy with tempestuous wrath, That all these are my souls most cherished share, That with their weird, majestic symphony, I am allowed to blend my grief and joy. You stirred my being; whether boundless joys Are woven in between the throes of life With yearning winding ivy or roses of love, Or whether sorrow with wide open arms Embrace me with a wreath of bitter herbs, And pours its bitter droplets into my wounded heart, To you my song keeps turning o’er and o’er, You stand by me in life’s disturbances, You press for me my feeble dying eyes, And when some day upon my grave will stand A stone, lone witness to my memory And its inscription will have disappeared, Then scatter roses over the crumbling wall And intertwine green ivy about the sinking stone, And in the graveyard’s darkened silent nook, Let a nightingale nest with his noisy brood, That in his sweet impassioned melody He may stir my soul in timeless ecstasy.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.