And long after, amid the wailing of the
breeze and the fitful bursts of childish grief, was heard the
fruitless cry, "Bring back my flowers!"
Merry maiden, who art idly wasting the precious moments so
bountifully bestowed upon thee, see in the thoughtless child an
emblem of thyself! Each moment is a perfumed flower. Let its
fragrance be diffused in blessings around thee, and ascend as
sweet incense to the beneficent Giver!
Else, when thou hast carelessly flung them from thee, and seest
them receding on the swift waters of Time, thou wilt cry, in
tones more sorrowful than those of the weeping child, "Bring back
my flowers!" And thy only answer will be an echo from the shadowy
Past,--"Bring back my flowers!"
In the above, a reminiscence of my German studies comes back to
me. I was an admirer of Jean Paul, and one of my earliest
attempts at translation was his "New Year's Night of an Unhappy
Man," with its yet haunting glimpse of "a fair long paradise
beyond the mountains." I am not sure but the idea of trying my
hand at a "prose-poem" came to me from Richter, though it may
have been from Herder or Krummacher, whom I also enjoyed and
attempted to translate.
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