The Neckar

My heart awakened to life in your valleys,  Your waves played around me.      And all of the fair hills that know you,        Wayfarer, are known to me as well.

On those peaks the winds from the sky  Relieved me from pains of bondage,      And silver-blue waves shone forth from the valley,        Like the joy of life pouring out from a chalice.

Mountain springs hurried down to you,  My heart with them, and you took us along      To the quietly splendid Rhine, down        To its cities and pleasant islands.

The world seems to me yet beautiful, and my eyes  Search out with desire the charms of the earth,      To golden Paktolos, to Smyrna's shores,          To Ilion's woods.  How I'd like

Go ashore at Sunium, and ask for the silent road  To your pillars,

Olympia!  Before age      And storm winds bury you as well        In the ruins of Athens' temples,

Along with the statues of its gods.  For you  Have long stood alone, pride of a world      That no longer exists.  And the beautiful        Islands of Ionia, where sea

Cools the hot shores and rushes through the woods  Of laurel, when the sun warms the grapevines,      And, oh, where golden autumn changes        The sighs of the poor people into songs,

When the pomegranate ripens, when the orange trees  Nod in a green night, and the gum trees drip      Resin, and drums and cymbals resound        To labyrinthine dances.

Perhaps someday my guardian deity will bring me     To these islands, but even then my thoughts       Would remain loyal to the Neckar        With its lovely meadows and pastoral shores.