F thou waken the birds to their song, dost thou waken no sorrow; Waken no sick to their pain; no captive to wrench at his fetters? Smile on the garden and fold, and on maidens who sing at the milking; Flash into tapestried chambers, and peep in the eyelids of lovers, Showing the blissful their bliss--Dost love, then, the place where thou smilest? Lovest thou cities aflame, fierce blows, and the shrieks of the widow? Lovest thou corpse-strewn fields, as thou lightest the path of the vulture? Lovest thou these, that thou gazest so gay on my tears, and my mother's, Laughing alike at the horror of one, and the bliss of another? What dost thou care, in thy sky, for the joys and the sorrows of mortals? Colder art thou than the nymphs: in thy broad bright eye is no seeing. Hadst thou a soul--as much soul as the slaves in the house of my father, Wouldst thou not save? Poor thralls! they pitied me, clung to me weeping, Kissing my hands and my feet--What, are gods more ruthless than mortals? Worse than the souls which they rule? Let me die: they war not with ashes!' Sudden she ceased, with a shriek: in the spray, like a hovering foam-bow, Hung, more fair than the foam-bow, a boy in the bloom of his manhood, Golden-haired, ivory-limbed, ambrosial; over his shoulder Hung for a veil of his beauty the gold-fringed folds of the goat-skin, Bearing the brass of his shield, as the sun flashed clear on its clearness. Curved on his thigh lay a falchion, and under the gleam of his helmet Eyes more blue than the main shone awful; around him Athene Shed in her love su
participants (1)
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Seda Wieland