Attributed to one Lois Saunders, a translation of the preceding.

WALK AT MIDNIGHT

My spirit passes in the silent night
Through each deserted street and quiet lane,
Astir an hour ago with laughter light,
Or passionate weeping -- now comes rest again.
The air is parched and drooping like a flower,
The revellers' foaming cup has ceased to gleam.
And care has vanished with the sunset hour,
The world is weary, -- let it rest and dream.

How all my hate and passion die away
As the day closes soft with sun or showers
And the moon sheds her reconciling ray
Although it fall but on fast dying flowers.
Light as a breath, unresting as a star,
My spirit roams through shade and pallid gleam,
And clear and open as its own thoughts are
Lie the dim workings of each secret dream.

My shadow glides before me like a spy --
I pause before a prison's guarded door:
O Fatherland, thy son loved faithfully,
And for that faithful love he paid full sore.
He sleeps -- nor knows that all his hopes have passed.
He dreams perchance of his old forest stream --
He dreams he holds the victor's crown at last.
O God of Freedom, leave to him, his dream.

Stately before me, under watch and ward,
A palace towers -- I pass the curtains' sheen
And see one who in sleep still grasps his sword,
One with sin marred and terror-stricken mien.
Haggard his face and yellow as his crown --
All decked for flight his coursers' trappings gleam --
He tumbles headlong, and the earth breaks down,
O God of justice -- leave him to his dream.

The little cabin by the lonely stream, --
Hunger and innocence have here their place,
Yet the poor peasant has his God-sent dream
Which all the long day's misery shall efface,
For every seed from Morpheus' hand that falls
Shall a fair harvest field before him gleam,
The narrow hut shall stretch to palace walls:
God of the needy -- let the poor man dream.

At the last house, before the bench of stone
With words of blessing on my lips I pause;
I love thee, dearest, but not thee alone,
Thou wilt not grudge my love in freedom's cause.
Butterflies hover round thy slumber light,
For me the rush of steeds, the battle's stream,
Thine is the dove's wing, mine the eagle's flight;
O God of Love -- still let my loved one dream.

O star! whose light, like joy, through clouds must break,
O night! close wrapped in thy dark veil of blue,
Let not the sorrowful earth too soon awake,
Our sad and toil-worn hearts again to view.
The earliest sunbeam shines on falling tears,
And Freedom's sword by day unsheathed must gleam;
The arm of Tyranny once more uprears.
O God of sleep and waking, let us dream.

quoted in
"Modern Lyric Poetry in Germany,"
printed in January 1895 issue of
Queen's Quarterly, Volume II,
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

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