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Excerpt, “The Poetry of Germany, Consisting from Upwards of Seventy of the Most Celebrated Poets.”  Translated into English Verse by Alfred Baskerville.  1853.

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AUGUST VON PLATEN-HALLERMUND

Translated by Percy MacKaye

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WOULD I WERE FREE AS ARE MY DREAMS

Would I were free as are my dreams,

Sequestered from the garish crowd

To glide by banks of quiet streams

Cooled by the shadow-drifting cloud!

Free to shake off this weary weight

Of human sin, and rest instead

On Nature's heart inviolate--

All summer singing o'er my head!

There would I never disembark,

Nay, only graze the flowery shore

To pluck a rose beneath the lark,

Then go my liquid way once more,

And watch, far off, the drowsy lines

Of herded cattle crop and pass,

The vintagers among the vines,

The mowers in the dewy grass;

And nothing would I drink or eat

Save heaven's clear sunlight and the spring

Of earth's own welling waters sweet,

That never make the pulses sting.

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Wie rafft’ ich mich auf in der Nacht

by August von Platen-Hallermünde (1796-1835): 1820.

Set by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) , op. 32 (Neun Lieder und Gesänge) no. 1 (1864). Translation copyright © by Emily Ezust, from The Lied & Art Song Texts Page

Oh, how I roused myself in the night, in the night.

And felt myself drawn further;

I left the alleys, guarded by the watchmen,

And wandered through quietly,

In the night, in the night,

The gate with the Gothic arch.

The mill brook rushed through the rocky gorge.

I leaned over the bridge,

Observing far below me the waves,

Which rolled so quietly,

In the night, in the night,

Yet never did one roll back.

Overhead wanders the infinite, flickering,

Melodic traffic of the stars.

With them, the moon in calm splendor;

They gleam quietly

In the night, in the night.

At a deceptively remote distance.

I gaze up into the night, in the night,

And gaze down again anew:

Alas, how have you spent the day!

Now, softly you try to still,

In the night, in the night,

The remorse of your pounding heart!

August Graf von Platen-Hallermünde