Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888.
Hope RepulsedErik Johan Stagnelius (17931823)
Translated by Edmund Gosse
U
I catch the stars of immortality;
What store of joy can hide in heaven for me?
What other hope feed those celestial gleams?
Can there be other grapes whose nectar streams
For me, whom earth’s vine fails? oh! can it be
That this abandoned heart again may see
A forehead garlanded, an eye that beams?
Alas! ’tis childhood’s dream that vanisheth!
The heaven-born soul that feigns it can return,
And end in peace this hopeless strife with fate!
There is no backward step; ’tis only death
Can quench at last these wasting fires that burn,
Can break the chain, the captive liberate.